march & april 2009

Monday, April 13, 2009 -

Well, the Easter rabbit apparently scared my mouse away, so I can't update the page until it gets back.
Don't buy that excuse? Well, how about that I am buried under tax forms and can't find the computer at all?
No? Well, the updating schedule was definitely messed up today - assign blame as you see fit,
and feel free to apply a few mild profanities as needed.
Better time management skills will be put in place for tomorrow.

-------------------

Sunday, April 12, 2009 -

No update today - HAPPY EASTER!

--------------------

Friday, April 10, 2009 -

"You can't shave somebody's head in his absence..."
Oduor Ong'wen

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
4/9/09 -
5.4 NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.0 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.0 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.0 CENTRAL ITALY
5.4 CENTRAL ITALY
5.2 SOUTHEAST OF LOYALTY ISLANDS
5.3 SCOTIA SEA
5.2 INDIA-PAKISTAN BORDER REGION

TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
CHILE - The crater of Chile's erupting Llaima volcano is blocked with debris that could prompt a pressure build-up and renewed explosions of lava, experts warned on Wednesday. Llaima began spitting lava in a fresh bout of activity on Friday night. It belched ash 4 miles (7 km) into the sky during the weekend, prompting the evacuation of 123 people from the surrounding area. Activity died down and there is now a much smaller ash cloud but national emergency office ONEMI said the situation remained critical. The cone of pyroclastic material, essentially molten rock, had built up and now jutted above the crater, extending the height of Llaima to 10,630 feet (3,240 meters) above sea level from around 10,397 feet (3,169 meters) previously. "It would be much better if the crater were unobstructed, so it can release energy gradually and slowly." The volcano's eruptive activity is very erratic and could quickly surge.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone JADE was 283 nmi SW of Saint Pierre, Reunion.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
NORTH DAKOTA - A storm system could bring additional precipitation as cities experience a second flood crest, according to the National Weather Service. The computer models used to determine weather forecasts “have been in agreement the last several days” that a system is heading toward the region. That storm most likely will get here sometime between April 16 and 18, which is when many cities along the Red River Valley will be nearing their second crest this spring. But the amount of precipitation it may bring or where it will impact the most remains too far away to determine. “We can’t really predict precipitation with any accuracy beyond four days. You can see it, but you’re not quite sure.” The latest probabilistic forecast released Friday said there is a 50 percent chance the second crest would hit 41.7 feet in Fargo and 51.7 feet in Grand Forks. Flooding this year has proved to be UNUSUAL for many reasons. Many communities are noticing very slow recessions of water levels after reaching their first crest. The Red River typically rises and falls at a similar rate, but this year it is not acting that way. Another UNUSUAL characteristic is the approaching second crest. In Grand Forks, this has happened only five times in the past 58 years, most recently in 1999. Another UNUSUAL factor was the early spring melt that caused rivers to rise last month. “This is an EXTREMELY UNUSUAL event to have a flood at this magnitude this early." Below-average temperatures have kept much of the soil moisture frozen in the ground, but as the month progresses and temperatures rise, all that water will join the new snowmelt and cause another wave of flooding. A recent band of heavy snowfall in the southern valley “basically reloaded the gun, as it were.” “To have spring floods like this back-to-back is just an unfortunate series of events that have come along to plague us this spring."

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

OKLAHOMA, TEXAS - Wildfires have destroyed dozens of homes and forced evacuations in parts of the US states of Oklahoma and Texas. Firefighters were struggling to contain the blazes, which started on Thursday and were worsened by strong winds. Dozens of people have reportedly been injured by the fires, which prompted the closure of a motorway in Oklahoma. "The wind is the biggest issue, because we can't get ahead of the fires."

A United Nations document on "climate change" envisions A HUGE REORDERING OF THE WORLD ECONOMY, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes - all under the supervision of the world body. Those and other results are blandly discussed in a discretely worded United Nations "information note" on potential consequences of the measures that industrialized countries will likely have to take to implement the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Treaty, after it is negotiated and signed by December 2009. The Obama administration has said it supports the treaty process if it can come up with an "effective framework" for dealing with global warming.
A mammoth negotiating session started on March 29 in Bonn, Germany, the first of three sessions intended to hammer out the actual commitments involved in the new deal. The negotiators are known as the "Ad Hoc Working Group On Further Commitments For Annex I Parties Under the Kyoto Protocol." The consequences of their negotiations, if enacted, would be NOTHING SHORT OF WORLD-CHANGING. Getting that deal done has become the United Nations' highest priority. No effort was made to calculate the magnitude of the costs and disruption involved, but despite the discreet presentation, it is made clear that they will REVERBERATE ACROSS THE ENTIRE GLOBAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM.
In an influential but highly controversial paper called "Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change," British economist Nicholas Lord Stern has declared that industrial economies would need to cut their per capita carbon dioxide emissions by "at least 80% by 2050," while the biggest economies, like the U.S.'s, would have to make cuts of 90%.

Plants and trees are growing faster because of rising carbon dioxide levels, potentially buying Earth more time to address global warming. The phenomenon has been discovered in a variety of flora, ranging from tropical rainforests to British sugar beet crops. It means they are soaking up at least some of the billions of tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere by humans that would otherwise be accelerating the rate of climate change. Scientists have been looking for a similar impact on crop yields and the experiments generally suggest that raised CO2 levels would boost the yields of mainstream crops, such as maize, rice and soy, by about 13 per cent. "The problem is that humans are releasing so much that plants can remove only a fraction of it." Humans are believed to generate about 50 billion tons of the gas each year. Scientists point out that although levels will boost plant growth, other factors associated with climate change, such as rising temperatures and drought, are likely to have a negative effect.

FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
MEXICO - Mexico City officials have shut down a main pipeline providing fresh water to millions of residents because reserves have fallen to RECORD LOW LEVELS. The closure, due to last 36 hours, will affect five million people, or a quarter of the city's population. Unusually low rainfall last year and major leakage are blamed for leaving reservoirs less than half full. This is the third time the capital has faced such a drastic form of water rationing this year. The local government says it will carry out emergency repairs to the water supply network. More than 50% of the water carried by the pipeline leaks out before it reaches its destination.

FLORIDA's worsening drought sparks water fights - A worsening drought is sparking battles over dwindling water supplies, with Florida's southwest coast demanding relief for rivers and estuaries. Everglades marshes and Big Cypress swamps are drying up. Estuaries at the mouths of the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers are turning too salty. Lake Okeechobee, brimming from Tropical Storm Fay less than a year ago, is slipping into the low zone again. Overall, the region has received less than 30 percent of its normal rainfall. ''If we don't get an inch of rain in the next three weeks, this will be the driest dry season on record." Water managers say the region lucked out last year when Tropical Storm Fay dumped 20 inches north of Lake Okeechobee, erasing the last long and damaging drought in a few days. ''That's all we have between us and disaster.''

While most of the world's water shortages appear to be local in nature, there is dramatic new evidence to suggest a global water shortage is taking shape. The Indus, Rio Grande, Colorado, Murray-Darling and Yellow rivers are significant sources of fresh water that no longer reach the sea. Further stress is put on the water supply by the economic rise of developing nations -- who use water to create electricity and produce feed for livestock.

CHOCOLATE - Scientists are warning of a possible chocolate shortage as disease ravages cocoa crops across the world. Some of the world's largest chocolate-producing countries, such as the Ivory Coast, could lose a third of their crop this year, because of the problem. One disease, the cacao swollen shoot virus (CSSV), which can kill the trees, is affecting crops in west Africa. Around 70 per cent of the world's chocolate comes from west Africa. In Brazil, another major producer of chocolate, crops are being affected by a fungus called witches' broom. Research has uncovered cacao varieties in Africa which are partially resistant to the disease and scientists are trying to breed more hardy versions.

------------------------------------------

Thursday, April 9, 2009 -

"You're not going to see your dreams come true if you don't put wings, legs and arms,
hands and feet on 'em. You gotta have people to help carry out those dreams."
Dolly Parton

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
4/8/09 -
5.0 EAST OF KURIL ISLANDS
5.2 OFF E. COAST OF N. ISLAND, N.Z.
5.2 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.0 VANUATU REGION
5.2 EAST OF SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS
5.3 KURIL ISLANDS

TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
Americas on alert for sea level rise - Climate change experts in North and South America are increasingly worried by the potentially devastating implications of higher estimates for possible sea level rises. The Americas have until now been seen as less vulnerable than other parts of the world like low-lying Pacific islands, Vietnam or Bangladesh. But the increase in the ranges for anticipated sea level rises presented at a meeting of scientists in Copenhagen in March has alarmed observers in the region. Parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and Ecuador are seen as most at risk. New York City and southern parts of Florida are also thought to be particularly vulnerable. The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report suggested that sea levels would rise by between 19cm (7.5 inches) and 59cm by the end of this century. But several scientists at the Copenhagen meeting spoke of a rise of a metre or more due to melting of the polar ice sheets, even if the world's greenhouse gas emissions are kept at a low level. Sea level rises are "climate committed", in the sense that because of existing and projected greenhouse gas emissions, they will continue long into the future. "The level and direction of change will destabilise extensive coastal areas in Latin America. Once flooded, there is no way back." Scientists stress that uncertainties remain about future sea level rises, including the behaviour of the giant polar ice sheets, the time span over which rises will take place, and their interaction with existing coastal conditions.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone JADE was 304 nmi WSW of Saint Pierre, Reunion.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

PHILIPPINES - Freak winds that packed frightening power lashed at some areas of western Pampanga on March 29. Several poultry houses growing broilers for the integrators collapsed like decks of cards. Probably a million about-to-be-harvested broilers were pinned down by the collapsed houses. The loss, in terms of poultry infrastructure, was huge. Worse, there were hordes of wild-eyed men from a nearly resettlement community ready to scoop in the pinned-down broilers. It cannot get worse than that, being preyed upon by human vultures in your hour of grief. The bigger loss, though, was suffered by the mango plantations. From March 30 to April 3, the farm gate price of mangoes in the affected areas was P3 per kilo (it was P25 to P40 per kilo elsewhere) because scores of mango farms had to dispose off their wind-blown fruits. The freak winds that also brought intermittent rains struck on a Sunday afternoon in March, supposedly the peak of summer. The parishioners in the barrios hit by the freak winds were mostly in church, sweltering in the late noon heat, when clouds of dust swept into the open churches, followed by a gloomy overcast and the sudden downpour. Some of the parishioners made the sign of the cross and thought it was God’s wrath. Those who know had a sense of what took place - the wrath of global warming in full display. Freak winds that cut swaths of destruction. Unbearable heat then the sudden downpour. For the first time in their lives April and March rains are now regular occurrences. Even weather forecasters are baffled by the sudden climatic shifts.

Climate change will bring about major shifts in worldwide fire patterns, and those changes are coming fast. Preliminary results show hotspots of fire invasion forming in parts of the western United States and the Tibetan plateau, while regions including northeast China and central Africa may become less fire-prone in the coming decades. "Fire patterns are going to change, and we need to start thinking about what that means for ecosystems, and what our response should be. Fire will be a major driver of change. A large decrease in fire activity is not necessarily a good thing for an ecosystem that has adapted to periodic wildfires. Some species of trees rely upon fires occurring at specific times to regenerate, for example, so changes in a fire regime have the potential to dramatically alter the landscape over time." Scientists warned in 2006 that climate change could increase bushfire risk across southeast Australia. Three years later, on top of years of drought, a blistering heat wave sent temperatures soaring up to 20 degrees above average in the region. These conditions, consistent with those expected under future climate change, set the stage for the deadliest fire in the country's history. "What Australia showed us is that things can happen faster than we think."

The Past Says Abrupt Climate Change In Our Future - "When we look at records of the past, climate often changed abruptly rather than smoothly. This is true wherever and whenever you look." While studies of ice cores, sediments and other relics of the past indicate these abrupt changes, the models currently used by those predicting the future of climate change do not do a good job of simulating abrupt changes in the past. The abrupt changes are especially notable in temperature near the north and south poles and in precipitation away from the poles. In the near term, nature sometimes changes smoothly, sometimes remains the same and sometimes changes all at once. In the long term, abrupt change appears to be the norm. Current models all tend to change smoothly and do not capture abruptness.
Climate change likely includes a process of approaching and crossing a series of thresholds. Climate forcing factors are like a tower of blocks. Building the tower, blocks can be added, and the tower remains stable, but eventually the block height crosses the threshold of stability and the tower abruptly topples. With climate, the thresholds in the past have sometimes been reached in as few as 10 years. "It will be a long time, if at all, before we are really good at predicting climate change and it may not be easy. Any reality may be very different from the predictions and we need to anticipate changes and surprises. We need to build uncertainty into our models of dealing with climate change."

HEALTH THREATS -
AUSTRALIA - almost 1000 people have been infected with dengue fever in north Queensland, officially making it the WORST OUTBREAK IN ALMOST 20 YEARS.

------------------------------------------

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 -

Failure to organise a bailout for ecological debt will have dire consequences for humanity. The ecological debt crisis, which threatens much more than pension funds and car manufacturers, is left to languish. It is like having a Commission on Household Renovation agonise over which expensive designer wallpaper to use for papering over plaster cracks whilst ignoring the fact that the walls themselves are collapsing on subsiding foundations. Each year, humanity's ecological overdraft gets larger, and the day that the world as a whole goes into ecological debt - consuming more resources and producing more waste than the biosphere can provide and absorb - moves ever earlier in the year. Using thresholds for risk identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on current trends, in only 92 months - less than eight years - we will move into a new, more perilous phase of warming. It will then no longer be "likely" that we can prevent some aspects of runaway climate change. We will begin to lose the climatic conditions which were those under which civilisation developed. Work on abrupt climate change indicates the planet has previously experienced a 10C temperature shift in only a decade, and possibly "as quickly as in a single year". In tackling climate change we need urgently to recalibrate our responses, just as governments had to when they rescued the reckless finance sector. Then officials had to ask themselves "is what we are doing right, and is it enough?" "Here we are, faced with the loss of an environment conducive to human civilisation, and we find governments prostrate before barely repentant banks, with their backs to a far worse ecological crisis."

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
4/7/09 -
5.0 AZORES-CAPE ST. VINCENT RIDGE
5.1 BANDA SEA
7.0 KURIL ISLANDS

ITALY - A powerful aftershock has hit central Italy, nearly two days after a major earthquake caused severe damage. The 5.5-magnitude tremor brought down masonry from already damaged buildings and was felt as far away as Rome. Rescuers are continuing into the night their search for victims trapped in the rubble from Monday's earthquake. Hope remains that more people will be found alive, as a woman was found alive 42 hours after the quake.
In Monday's quake, more than 200 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured. One-hundred-and-fifty people have been pulled alive from the rubble. More than 10,000 buildings have been destroyed - mostly in L'Aquila. Apart from the search for survivors, the most urgent task is to find some kind of accommodation for thousands of people who are now unable to return to their damaged homes.
It was Italy's WORST EARTHQUAKE IN THREE DECADES. Aftershocks continue to rattle the region. Monday's quake left at least 235 people dead, with 15 still missing. Reconstruction will cost about 1.2 billion euros, or almost $1.6 billion. Falling temperatures, rain and aftershocks that threatened to cause further building collapses complicated efforts overnight as rescuers used dogs to try to find those buried across the region, which has a population of 300,000. Temperatures fell to 39 degrees in L'Aquila, dipping to near freezing at higher altitudes. (Photo gallery)
Photos and story from Fossa, Italy.

Claims by an Italian technician to have foretold the devastating quake which struck central Italy prompted seismologists on Tuesday to shake their heads in sadness and skepticism. No proven method exists, they said, for predicting earthquakes with any accuracy -- and the best way to save lives from Earth's wrath is to beef up construction standards and educate people about seismic risk. Hours after the quake struck Italy's Abruzzo region on Monday, Giampaolo Giuliani, a technician at the National Institute of Astrophysics, unleashed a storm. He said he had predicted the event by detecting a surge in emissions of radon gas that leaked from stressed rocks, but his warning had been stifled by the authorities. The idea of using radon, a radioactive gas naturally sequestered by certain rocks, as a telltale for impending quakes dates back to the 1970s. "So far, nothing has been proven. You have to know exactly what you are measuring. Radon emissions depend on many factors. For instance, if atmospheric pressure falls, it's easier for radon to escape from the earth's crust. It's very difficult to make a coherent comparison of emission levels. There are lots of people who are looking at radon levels in the world, and so far they have not been able to establish a correlation" with earthquake occurrence. In Monday's quake, "something must have happened in the Earth's crust for the radon concentrations to have changed. But was it pure coincidence that the earthquake happened just afterwards, or was there a connection?"

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone JADE was 362 nmi W of Saint Pierre, Reunion.

Three people were killed and 800 made homeless by tropical cyclone Jade on the Indian Ocean island nation of Madagascar.

2009 Atlantic hurricane season -
Tropical Storm Risk predicts an above average season, with 15 tropical storms.
Hurricane forecast pioneer William Gray said the six-month season beginning on June 1 would likely see 12 tropical storms.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CANADA - Floods closed a highway between Canada and the United States today, blocking a significant trade route that could remain shut for weeks.

INDONESIA - Southern Java Residents Warned of Extreme Weather Conditions - The Cilacap Meteorology & Geophysics Agency told southern Central Java residents to be alert about heavy rains and strong winds in the area. “The wind speed is 45 kilometer per hour and this is dangerous." The extreme weather conditions will go on until June. “The wind is hard to predict. It comes suddenly and lasts for some minutes. It is indicated by extreme temperature. First it is hot, then suddenly cold, with cumulus nimbus clouds forming." Last week, bad weather caused flooding in Glembang village in Maos, Cilacap.

FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
MEXICO - The National Water Commission said Tuesday it will suspend part of Mexico City's water supply for several days because of a water shortage and planned maintenance. The Cutzamala reservoir system, which supplies about a fifth of the capital's water, will shut off supply completely on Thursday for 36 hours, and then resume supplies at 50% of capacity until Sunday, when it resumes full supplies. The interruption is largely due to critically low water levels in reservoirs because of low rainfall last year. Usually, Cutzamala cuts off water supply to Mexico City twice a year for about 12 hours to carry out maintenance. They rejected assertions that the interruption will leave major areas of the capital entirely without water for days.

AFRICA - Water shortage already critical in Darfur villages. Aid agencies provided handpumps and food for the camps, but virtually nothing has been done to help villages. Few pumps have been provided in remote areas and people have been forced to walk for many hours to reach water, despite the risk of attack. Existing pumps that have broken down have been left unrepaired. Even basic health care is not available. An influx of refugees will further undermine the chance of survival for these villages.

CHINA - North China’s Hebei Province, the major water supplier to Beijing, is facing a serious water shortage due to overexploitation and drought.

NEPAL - Nearly half of the 75 districts of Nepal will face an acute food shortage if the government does not act fast. At present, 37 districts are facing food shortage. "We don't have adequate funds to supply food in drought-hit areas." A study by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives reveals that there was 30% drop in paddy yield and 80% drop in winter crops yield, mainly wheat. Last July, the government had declared drought-hit the hill districts in five zones. Later, they added seven Terai districts to the drought-hit areas as there was inadequate rain in winter. Meanwhile, food supply to far-western hill districts has stopped since three days due to unavailability of aviation fuel.

TANZANIA - Famine is threatening Arusha and Manyara due to prolonged drought that has hit the northern regions. Most affected areas are semi-arid northern plains and highlands inhabited by livestock keepers. Some herders have started marathon journeys with their animals to places where they can find pastures and water. People in Ngorongoro, Karatu, Mbulu and Simanjiro districts are already starving, while people in other districts are worried. There have been reports pointing to the possibility of more exodus of people and their animals from the vast districts because of the punishing drought. Normally Ngorongoro receives the first rains in November but until March 20th, it had received only some drizzles lasting only for two days. More than 34,000 households are facing food shortage, needing an emergency food supply of 9,000 tonnes of cereals. The situation has also been grim in Karatu and Mbulu districts where thousands of people have migrated from their homes for search of food. Much of Lake Manyara has dried up and elephants are roaming villages destroying farms. More than 240,000 people in Tanzania are in dire need of food.

SOUTH AFRICA - WINE GRAPES - The wine harvest will drop 8 percent after a heat wave shortened the picking season by a month.

AUSTRALIA - GRAPES - Australia expects grape production to drop this year. This year they were hit by a heatwave in late January and early February which further reduced yields.

INDIA - COFFEE - India’s coffee exports decline as heavy rain reduces harvest.

TEXAS - WHEAT - The first U.S. Department of Agriculture report on the 2009 U.S. winter wheat crop said 40% of the crop in Texas is in very poor condition. Across the country, winter wheat acreage mirrors conditions from a year ago, with the bulk of the acreage in the moderate rankings between poor and good. Following an "excessively dry" winter in the Southern Plains, the USDA lists 37% of Oklahoma's winter wheat crop as in very poor or poor condition.
TEXAS - COTTON - Rio Grande Valley cotton crop could be SMALLEST ON RECORD due to drought.

ALASKA - Redoubt ash cloud raises food shortage concerns - With experts predicting that eruptions could continue for several months, the state of Alaska is fearing the possibility of food shortages. Alaska receives a large portion of its food and supplies via air travel, with Anchorage being a major hub for this transport. Especially during the winter months, air travel is the only method of food transport, as seas in the Arctic Ocean are too rough and clogged with ice to allow transport by boat.

------------------------------------------

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 -

If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?
It's already blue...

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
4/6/09 -
5.0 HINDU KUSH REGION, AFGHANISTAN
5.3 TONGA REGION
5.0 KURIL ISLANDS
5.1 CENTRAL ITALY
5.1 CENTRAL ITALY
6.3 CENTRAL ITALY

ITALY - Rescuers are continuing to search for signs of life, a day after the devastating Italian earthquake left at least 150 people dead. As the pouring rain turned brick dust into a white sludge, exhausted emergency workers toiled through the night, pulling away bricks and broken pieces of wood with their bare hands. With 1,500 injured and some 50,000 homeless after Monday's pre-dawn quake struck L'Aquila and its region, many survivors spent the night in shelters. Emergency crews have reportedly pulled 100 people alive from the rubble. But as dawn broke with as many as 250 still thought to be missing, hopes were dimming of finding many more alive. There was a strong after-shock around 2200GMT, which lasted for around two seconds and made the ground feel like jelly. It was the strongest of dozens of after-shocks felt throughout Monday. Many houses in L'Aquila have been reduced to piles of rubble, dotted with crushed cars. Much of the centre of L'Aquila had to be rebuilt after an earthquake in 1703.
Town 'ignored warning' of imminent earthquake - a seismologist who claimed he could have given up to 24 hours notice of the disaster said his repeated warnings had been ignored. Even as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declared an emergency and promised a record number of rescue teams, a bitter row was raging over whether lives could have been saved by evacuating homes before the quake struck at 3.32am. A flurry of earth tremors struck the L'Aquila area in mid-January, prompting Giampaolo Giuliani, a researcher at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, whose laboratories are deep beneath the Gran Sasso mountain on L'Aquila's skyline to sound the alarm. In interviews before the earthquake struck he claimed that he had developed an early warning system based not on seismic waves but on radon which is only expelled from the earth under intense pressure. After his warnings, vans with megaphones toured L'Aquila urging people to leave their homes. But the mayor allegedly served the seismologist with a warning of criminal charges for scare-mongering, even though the region had experienced nine tremors since the start of April. "Now there are people who have to apologise to me and who will have what has happened on their conscience," Mr Giuliani said. The expert said he was helpless to act as it became clear to him on Sunday that a quake was imminent. "I didn't know who to turn to, I had been put under investigation for saying there was going to be an earthquake."

VOLCANOES -
ALASKA - A satellite is tracking a sulfur dioxide cloud emitted by the April 4th Mt. Redoubt eruption: image. The cloud will probably move across North America in the days ahead. Keep an eye out for volcanic sunsets.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone JADE was 440 nmi WNW of Saint Pierre, Reunion.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
IOWA - It has now been confirmed, a tornado did in fact touch down near Fairfield Saturday...causing some structural damage. The first report of damage came from a shed two miles south of Fairfield. The roof was completely torn off. It then moved to the northwest, causing more damage to a farm. Three outbuildings were destroyed and two homes damaged. Pivots were also overturned there and debris was scattered throughout the property. The national weather service in Hastings said it was an UNUSUAL situation. “Normally when we're looking at these, we're going to see the inflow or the front side of the storm being where the tornado's going to be. In this case it occurred on the EXACT OPPOSITE SIDE...on the back side of the system. So it was kind of UNIQUE in that aspect and difficult to detect with the radar." Other weak tornadoes were reported southwest of York and north of Beatrice.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

AUSTRALIA - The persistence and severity of the drought in the Murray-Darling Basin has been described as "UNPRECEDENTED" after late summer inflows to the river system fell to a 117-YEAR LOW.

Arctic ice getting thinner, fading fast - Ice in the ocean surrounding the Arctic is THINNER THAN IT'S BEEN IN 30 YEARS, and there's much less of it. A team of climate scientists is predicting from earlier data that the Arctic's ice cover has been melting so rapidly over the past few years that much of it could be gone within another three decades. The ice that begins freezing every autumn over the vast ocean surrounding the pole is so thin it may last only a year. By contrast, ice that doesn't thaw during the spring and summer becomes perennial ice that grows thicker and thicker year by year. By the end of February, the survey team found that ice cover over the far north had reached 5.85 million square miles this winter, representing the fifth-lowest area of ice cover since satellite surveys began in 1979. This year the cover is mostly thinner than normal and will not last the summer season. Thin ice made up more than 70 percent of the total cover this winter, compared to 40 to 50 percent in the 1980s. The older thick ice - ice that lasts two years or longer - made up 30 to 40 percent of the Arctic ice cover in the 1980s, while this year it amounts to only 10 percent of the total. The Arctic is losing sea ice far more rapidly than the world's experts had predicted in the last report from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The rapid loss of Arctic sea ice over the three years from 2005 to 2008 marked "a NEW MILESTONE." The warming ocean has caused summer air temperatures across the Arctic to rise by as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit more than the IPCC had predicted. "We predict a nearly sea-ice-free Arctic in September by the year 2037." (September is the end of the melting season and the beginning of the next year's freeze)

FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
INDIA - MANGOES - Mango farmers of Gundlav and other villages in Valsad district are a worried lot due to extreme changes in the weather. Late flowering this season had not left them with much hope of a good harvest. Fierce storms in last two days have just added to their misery. Many mango growers are not interested in harvesting as their orchards do not have a significant yield left. The constant change in weather is likely to have an impact on mango production this year, sources say. The fogginess and heat could also affect the quality of the produce. "We expect mango production this year to be around 10 to 15 per cent of what it was last year. Constant change in weather and late flowering have taken their toll on the crop." High temperature is also affecting mango production. South Gujarat has been experiencing about 42 degree Celsius temperature for last few days. "Because of the high temperature, mangoes turn yellowish and fall off early."

------------------------------------------

Monday, April 6, 2009 -

A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
Horace Walpole

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
4/5/09 -
5.7 KYUSHU, JAPAN
5.1 TONGA REGION

ITALY - A desperate search for survivors is on in the mountain city of L'Aquila in central Italy after a quake killed at least 90 people and injured 1,500. Rescuers are picking through rubble in the walled medieval city and nearby towns and villages, some of which are said to have been flattened and virtually destroyed. 30,000-40,000 are homeless. The 6.3-magnitude quake struck at 0330 (0130 GMT) close to L'Aquila, 95km (60 miles) north-east of Rome. It lasted about 30 seconds, bringing down many Renaissance-era and Baroque buildings. Boulders fell off mountain slopes, blocking roads. Houses were reduced to piles of rubble and cars crushed by raining debris. 26 cities and towns have been damaged in the region, not including villages and hamlets. (photos & map)

VOLCANOES -
CHILE - The eruption of the Llaima volcano in Chile intensified Sunday, blowing ash four miles into the sky and prompting more evacuations. Llaim began spewing lava on Friday night in a fresh bout of activity. A towering cloud of ash was drifting toward Argentina, extending 62 miles southeast of the volcano. “The volcano continues to permanently erupt, with explosions, lava flows and ash. More people were evacuated overnight because of the risk of mud avalanches as the lava melts snow on the volcano.” Lava was flowing down the volcano’s sides in three directions for hundreds of yards and 71 people have been evacuated.

HAWAII - Big Island volcano scientists have released video footage showing the recent eruption activity at the Kilauea summit.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone JADE was 464 nmi NW of Saint Pierre, Reunion.

Tropical Cyclone Lin did not come ashore in Tonga over the weekend, but the winds and heavy rain generated by it disrupted power supplies on the main island of Tongatapu. Food gardens and fruit trees around the island have also been damaged. There's expected to be food shortages in Tonga after the cyclone. "Bananas and the tapiocas were the main ones that were damaged." Locals are still checking to find out if the extended land mass of the island of Hunga Ha'apai, generated by the recent volcanic eruptions, has survived the cyclone. "Whether there is still anything left above sea level or not." What's left of Cyclone Lin is now located south east of Tonga.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

AUSTRALIA - Heatwave 'killed more than bushfires' - January's extraordinary heatwave could have killed 374 Victorians, more than double the number of deaths in the Black Saturday bushfires.

SPACE WEATHER-
IRELAND - 4/5/09 - Security cameras in Northern Ireland may shed some light on the cause of a massive fireball in the sky on Sunday. The shooting star was reported at about 1230 BST. "We think...it came from the west across the centre of Ireland." "We're fairly certain that it was a rock from space, a meteor which may have dropped a meteorite." The last time a meteorite was seen over Ireland was in 1999 over Carlow and there was a similar event over the skies of Northern Ireland 30 years earlier.

------------------------------------------

Sunday, April 5, 2009 -

The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope.
Love of the past implies faith in the future.
Stephen Ambrose

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
4/4/09 -
5.4 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.2 TONGA REGION
5.6 TONGA REGION
5.3 BALLENY ISLANDS REGION
6.2 PHILIPPINE ISLANDS REGION
4/3/09 -
5.8 KEP. TANIMBAR REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
5.4 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
5.6 CATAMARCA, ARGENTINA
5.3 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 TONGA REGION

Third quake shakes East Tennessee in eight days - The lastest was a 1.0 magnitude quake. The first was a magnitude 1.0 quake that hit near Madisonville on March 25th.

VOLCANOES -
CHILE - Llaima volcano, one of the most active in South America, spewed out a river of lava more than 1,000 metres long on Saturday in a fresh eruption, prompting officials to order dozens of people to evacuate. The lava and hot gases from the latest eruption are melting snow on the sides of the volcano, and authorities say some towns are in danger of being hit by mudslides. An ash-swollen river near the volcano had swept away a pedestrian bridge, but there was no other damage. Bright red bursts of lava were visible in the night sky as Llaima erupted.

ALASKA - The Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska has had another large eruption after being relatively quiet for nearly a week. The volcano erupted early Saturday. The radar indicated a plume of volcanic ash rose 50,000 feet into the sky, making this one of the largest eruptions since the volcano became active on March 22. The ash cloud was drifting toward the southeast and there were reports of the fine, gritty ash falling in towns on the Kenai Peninsula.

COSTA RICA - Experts Predicting Major Activity From Arenal Volcano - Experts of the Red Sismológica Nacional UCR-ICE are warning that the volcán Arenal could spew out lava and ash in the coming days and has asked area residents to be on the alert and follow the directions of the Comisión Nacional de Emergencias, in the event of an eruption. The alert is based on a prognosis following 45 tectonic earthquakes in the colossus, registered during the month of March.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone LIN was 1075 nmi NNE of Auckland, New Zealand.
Cyclone TWENTYSIX was 429 nmi NNW of Port Louis, Mauritius.

Tropical storm Twentysix is forecast to strike Madagascar at about 02:00 GMT on 6 April.

Tonga is bracing for the onset of Tropical Cyclone Lin which is tracking a southeast path towards the country’s southern region.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CANADA - Fargo waters snake north to the ice of Winnipeg - Flood forecasters are expecting flood waters to reach LEVELS NOT SEEN SINCE 1979, Manitoba's second-highest flood.

ILLINOIS - WETTEST MARCH ON RECORD for Peoria. A new March monthly rainfall record has been established for Peoria. For the month 7.49 inches of rain fell.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

Antarctic ice shelf breaks up - An ice bridge which had apparently held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place during recorded history shattered yesterday and could herald a wider collapse linked to global warming. "It's amazing how the ice has ruptured. Two days ago it was intact." The satellite picture showed that a 40 km long strip of ice believed to pin the Wilkins Ice Shelf in place had splintered at its narrowest point, about 500 metres wide. "We've waited a long time to see this." The Wilkins, now the size of Jamaica or the U.S. state of Connecticut, is one of 10 shelves to have shrunk or collapsed in recent years on the Antarctic Peninsula, where temperatures have risen in recent decades apparently because of global warming. "Charcot Island will be a real island for the first time in history." The loss of the ice bridge, jutting about 20 metres out of the water and which was almost 100 km wide in 1950, may now allow ocean currents to wash away far more of the Wilkins shelf. The loss of ice shelves does not affect sea levels - floating ice contracts as it melts and so does not raise ocean levels. But their loss can allow glaciers on land to slide more rapidly towards the sea, adding water to the oceans. The Wilkins does not have much ice pent up behind it. But bigger ice shelves to the south on the frozen continent, where no major warming has been detected, hold back far more ice.

INDIA - The entire state of Gujarat is reeling under the heat wave with temperatures higher by 3-4 degree Celsius than normal levels.

PENNSYLVANIA - Region SETS DRYNESS RECORD FOR FIRST THREE MONTHS OF THE YEAR - The first three months ended at the Reading Regional Airport with a meager total of 4.31 inches of precipitation.

FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
Three years of drought are threatening to destroy California farmers, and the state's multi-billion dollar agriculture industry. News of a smaller snowpack than usual doesn't improve the dry situation in the usually fertile Central Valley. That means farmers can't expect to see more water for their crops. It's heartbreaking to see the area that supplies 40% of the nation's food supply vanishing, with farmers refusing to plant or just ripping up their crops. Without more water, California's $37 billion dollar agricultural industry is on the line. Empty fields have cost thousands of jobs, with the unemployed pressuring Sacramento to solve the problem. Consumers will feel it next. "It's going to dramatically impact the supply of food, the cost of food and the availability of food."

Food shortage fears as Angola floods worsen - Aid agencies warned Friday that devastating floods that have hit 220,000 people in Angola could cause food shortages.

------------------------------------------

Friday, April 3, 2009 -

It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast.
Even the English can't do it.
John Kenneth Galbraith

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
4/2/09 -
5.0 SOUTHWESTERN RYUKYU ISL., JAPAN
5.0 OFFSHORE ATACAMA, CHILE
5.1 NEAR N COAST OF NEW GUINEA, PNG

TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.

AUSTRALIA - Coastalwatch features epic surf from tropical cyclone Jasper - Coastalwatch gathers up a few gems from the recent spat of waves with a feature on epic surf from the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and North Coast NSW courtesy of cyclone Jasper. Queensland and Northern NSW has been pumping over the past week thanks to Tropical Cyclone Jasper. The stories are large with reports like “ good as it gets”, “best for a decade” etc. The pictures tell the story and Coastalwatch has just launched a feature with more than 40 outstanding images of what has been happening.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
AUSTRALIA - Homes flooded, residents stranded in SE Qld storms - Roads cut, blackouts in SE Qld Wild weather caused chaos across south-east Queensland Thursday afternoon. Homes have been inundated and there have been scores of rescues. The wild weather has caused power blackouts across south-east Queensland. Rain around Brisbane and the Gold Coast has also caused localised flooding and large swells have caused erosion on the region's beaches.

HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
MINNESOTA - International Falls has a NEW RECORD FOR ITS SNOWIEST WINTER. The 8.4 inches of snow Borderland received between Tuesday and Wednesday morning put the total amount of snow this winter at 123 inches. That amount beats the 1996 record of 116 inches of snow.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

MARYLAND - After nearly two months with only a few inches of snow and scant rainfall across most of Maryland, more than half the state officially fell into a drought.

------------------------------------------

Thursday, April 2, 2009 -

“My idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing
and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogances, meannesses and hypocrisies.”
Mark Twain

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
4/1/09 -
5.2 KEP. MENTAWAI REGION, INDONESIA
5.5 SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, INDONESIA
6.3 NEAR N COAST OF NEW GUINEA, PNG.
5.0 WESTERN XIZANG

TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

NEPAL - Climate change 'fans Nepal fires' - The forest fires that flared UNUSUALLY VICIOUSLY in many of Nepal's national parks and conserved areas this dry season have left conservationists worrying if climate change played a role. At least four protected areas were on fire for an UNUSUALLY LONG TIME until just a few days ago. Nasa's satellite imagery showed most of the big fires were in and around the national parks along the country's northern areas bordering Tibet. The extent of the loss of flora and fauna is not yet known. More than the loss of plants and animals, the carbon dioxide emitted by the fires was a matter of concern. Some of the national parks in the plains bordering India were also on fire. Why were the fires so different this time? "The most obvious reason was the UNUSUALLY LONG DRY SPELL this year." For nearly six months, no precipitation has fallen across most of the country - the LONGEST DRY SPELL IN RECENT HISTORY. "We have seen winter becoming drier and drier in the last three or four years, but this year has SET THE RECORD." Rivers are running at their lowest, and because most of Nepal's electricity comes from hydropower, the country has been suffering power cuts up to 20 hours a day. Had it not been for recent drizzles, conservationists say some of the national parks would still be on fire. They point to "cloud burst phenomena" - huge rainfall within a short span of time during monsoons, and frequent, sudden downpours in the Himalayan foothills - as more examples of extreme weather events. "Seeing all these changes happening in recent years, we can contend that this dryness that led to so much fire is one of the effects of climate change." Are we waiting for a bigger disaster to admit that it is climate change? "The weather pattern has changed, and we know that there are certain impacts of climate change." Limited studies have shown that temperature in the Himalayas has been increasing on average by 0.06 degrees annually, causing glaciers to melt and retreat faster. The meltdown has been rapidly filling up many glacial lakes that could break their moraines and burst out, sweeping away everything downstream. In Nepal and neighbouring countries, these "glacial lake outburst floods" and monsoon-related floods resulting from erratic rainfalls are at present the most talked-about disasters in the context of climate change.

HEALTH THREATS -
The world is on the cusp of an explosion of drug-resistant tuberculosis cases that could deluge hospitals and leave physicians fighting a nearly untreatable malady with little help from modern drugs.

------------------------------------------

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 -

A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -
"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/31/09 -
5.1 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.3 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.4 PAGAN REG., N. MARIANA ISLANDS
5.0 TONGA
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
3/30/09 -
5.1 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.8 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS.
5.8 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS.
5.1 KODIAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
6.0 KODIAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
5.2 KODIAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA

Tremors Trigger Panic in Northern Emirates - With continued rough weather conditions affecting life across the country, two minor tremors, measuring 2.9 and 3.5 on the Richter scale hit Fujairah in the morning hours on Tuesday. The first tremor took place at the Gulf of Oman at 6.21am while the second hit North Dibba at 9.35am. The tremors were felt by the residents of Dibba, Fujairah and Dibba Al Hisn. The ceiling of an under-construction building collapsed in Dibba Al Hisn and injured three workers. It was not clear if tremors or heavy rain caused the collapse - the pillars of the building might not have been strong enough which led to the collapse. Abu Dhabi witnessed a similar incident at 10.30am when a three storey building on Elektra Street shifted and partly ‘sunk’ into the ground. A wall on the ground floor of the building fell resulting in the floor sinking a metre-deep. Panicked occupants were evacuated by the Abu Dhabi civil defence to two other buildings close by as a precautionary measure. The continuous heavy rains may have caused the building to shift and collapse.

MYSTERY BOOMS -
U.S. EAST COAST - 3/29/09 - The flashing lights and booming sounds seen over parts of the East Coast Sunday night were not a result of a man-made space object, according to the United States Air Force. It was first believed that the lights and sounds were caused by space junk related to the Russian rocket Soyuz docking with the International Space Stations Saturday. Whatever flashed through the sky followed the exact path the space junk was traveling over the eastern seaboard. Witnesses describe the flashes in the sky as being colored with yellows and oranges. Fireballs usually throw sparks that appear green followed by trains of blue and red. The loud explosion accompanying the balls of fire in the sky could be explained if the object was a rocket tank with residual amounts of booster fuel. The flashes and booms that people heard prompted calls to 911 and the National Weather Service late Sunday night. The calls were numerous enough for the National Weather Service to release this statement late Sunday night: "Numerous reports have been called in to this office and into local law enforcement concerning what appeared to be flashes of light in the sky over the Suffolk/Virginia Beach area. We are confident in saying that this was not lightning...and have been in contact with military and other government agencies to determine the cause. So far...we have not seen or heard of any damage from this and will continue to inquire as to the cause."
The bright fireball Sunday evening was UNUSUAL even by fireball standards. So far we've heard of sightings from Maryland to North Carolina. "At precisely 9:40 p.m. EDT... Suddenly the ground lit up a bright green color. Gazing skyward we saw what appeared to be brilliant fireball meteor. As it moved across the sky NNE between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major it turned from a green color to a brilliant orange, with a white core. Two and a half minutes later we heard a low-pitched rumbling sound. I've been observing more than 40 years but have never seen a meteor this bright. It was absolutely spectacular!" Meteor specialists perk up especially at reports of rumbling or booming in the minute or two after a fireball. If a meteoroid penetrates deep enough into the atmosphere that sounds can reach the ground (as opposed to being refracted upward), it's a sign that the meteoroid survived low enough that it likely dropped fragments on the ground. The fireball reportedly lasted only about 5 to 8 seconds. Re-entering satellites move more slowly, last much longer, and generally cross the whole sky. So the hunt for fallen meteorites is back on.

VOLCANOES -
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - Eastern Congo volcanoes show eruption warning signs - Two volcanoes may erupt in heavily populated eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where years of fighting have already forced 1 million people from their homes. Scientists in Goma, capital of the border province of North Kivu, have in recent weeks registered high levels of seismic activity, considered an early warning sign of an impending eruption, around the Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira volcanoes. "There is heavy activity around Nyiragongo, but it's more centred on Nyamulagira, around 13 km (8 miles) away." Nyiragongo, which lies just outside Goma, erupted in 2002, sending a river of lava through the city, destroying thousands of homes and killing dozens of people. "Red Cross volunteers are on alert to help the population, which still has memories of the (2002) eruption ... which displaced around 400,000 people." Goma itself did not appear to be at risk, as the level of lava in the Nyiragongo crater is relatively low. "It's less worrying. The higher the lava level, the higher the probability of a serious eruption. The risk is greater for the villages west of the Nyamulagira volcano."

ALASKA - Mount Redoubt changes eruption pattern, emitting a more steady ash plume rather than the violent explosions of the past week. The volcano has erupted 18 times since March 22, sending ash in various directions. A light dusting of ash fell for the first time on Anchorage on Saturday. But since then, the volcano has entered a new phase. Emissions generally have not risen above 20,000 feet and have not reached large population centers. Scientists say they can't predict how long Redoubt stays in this mode. "It could continue for some time, but this is also a very unstable system so we could also go back to seeing these large explosions."
Currently 6 million gallons of Alaska Crude Oil wait at the base of the volcano that has puked, spewed and gone half mad 19 times in the last 8 days. The crude oil storage facility in a volcanic floodplain poses a danger to one of the state's most important fisheries.

TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
AUSTRALIA - Massive five metre waves close Sydney beaches. Waves up to five metres high are hammering the coast of Sydney and surrounding areas, while heavy rain has brought down trees and damaged homes. Dangerous surf forced the closure of all Sydney beaches today, except for Bondi, with destructive waves expected to continue until tomorrow. More than 85mm of rain has fallen in the past 24 hours at Turramurra, in Sydney's north, and more than 60mm in the city's western suburbs.

TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
AUSTRALIA - RECORD DOWNPOUR batters New South Wales - Floodwaters raging through the NSW north coast have forced the evacuation of people from at least 100 properties in Coffs Harbour and left thousands of other residents stranded. At some Coffs Harbour homes, water reached chest height, with the town receiving 370mm of rain in 11 hours. "This has resulted in rapid rises in Coffs Creek approaching the levels of the record November 1996 flood." At Boambee, south of Coffs Harbour, 149mm of rain fell between 1pm and 2pm (AEDT) on Tuesday. A spokesman described it as a "ONE IN A 100-YEAR OCCURRENCE". The highest rainfall was at Red Hill, west of Coffs Harbour, which received 380mm of rain in 11 hours.

ANGOLA - The floods here could trigger a major food shortage, as harvest yields are expected to plummet 63%.

HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
NORTH DAKOTA - A massive blizzard bore down on flood-ravaged North Dakota Monday as officials struggled to shore-up levees against potential erosion from high, powerful waves and swift moving waters.

FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
Tea prices are surging - demand exceeded supply in 2008, driving up the cost. Tea prices have soared as drought has hit Kenya hard in the past year, as well as Sri Lanka and India, which is the world's biggest producer of tea. "There've been reports of a 15% drop in production in Sri Lanka alone in January and February due to the drought." Traders are expecting the worst. "If the shortfall turns out to be as deep as expected, then prices will go through the roof." There is no reserve of tea.

Earth population 'exceeds limits' - humans have exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability". "We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people." We have six-and-a-half-billion people on the planet, going rapidly towards seven.

SPACE WEATHER -
As April begins, the sun has been spotless for 24 consecutive days. How long can the blank spell continue? The longest stretch of blank suns in the past 100 years was 92 days in April, May and June of 1913. To match that streak, today's sun must remain spotless until early June 2009.

------------------------------------------

Monday, March 30, 2009 -

All you need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.
Charles Schulz

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/29/09 -
5.2 VANUATU
5.1 BABUYAN ISL REGION, PHILIPPINES
3/28/09 -
5.9 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.0 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
5.1 WEST OF BONIN ISLANDS
3/27/09 -
5.0 JAVA, INDONESIA
5.3 TARAPACA, CHILE
5.2 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
5.3 GUERRERO, MEXICO
5.1 SOUTHERN YUKON TERRITORY, CANADA

NEW ZEALAND - RARE quake strikes Mackenzie Basin - Key Mackenzie Country hydro power stations and canals were urgently checked for damage on Saturday after the region's SHARPEST EARTHQUAKE FOR MANY YEARS. The tremor struck at 5.46am on Saturday, measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale. It was centred about 10 kilometres west of Twizel, at a depth of 15km. Twelve people around the Mackenzie Basin reported ground movement strong enough to cause minor damage. Twizel police constable said it was "a fair shake" that had damaged his police house. "The house has cracking to the brickwork. Some of the plaster has been pulled off the basework too. It woke me up properly. I was talking to a guy who said it was the biggest one in 20 years." It appeared the tremor was not located on a previously known fault. "Seismically, it is quite a quiet area. You get very few earthquakes there." A 3.2 magnitude aftershock was recorded at 9.18pm on Saturday. More aftershocks might follow.

MACEDONIA - Some 30 earthquakes have been registered in Macedonia in 32 hours, the country's Seismological Obsertavory said on Wednesday. The first was with a magnitude of 3 degrees on the European Merkalli scale. It was registered Tuesday at 20:28 hrs. The second quake measured 3-4 degrees on the European Merkalli scale.

PERU - Thursday’s 5.8 earthquake was the fifth of medium intensity to rock Peru this week.

VOLCANOES -
ALASKA - Mount Redoubt has erupted again, spewing an ash cloud 50,000 feet up into the air. The volcano had a significant eruption at 1:20 a.m. Saturday. The ash is expected to move north toward the Alaska Range, missing Anchorage which is about 100 miles from the volcano. The observatory says after the eruption, it detected strong seismic activity lasting 20 minutes or more followed by an hours-long low-level tremor. Mount Redoubt erupted several times on Saturday, with the most recent eruption occurring at just after 3:30 pm. The eruption of Mount Redoubt has many travelers stranded in Anchorage. Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is closed. Since the series of eruptions began Sunday night, the volcano has had about a dozen bursts. Scientists say the explosions could go on for weeks. The last time the volcano erupted was during a four-month period in 1989-90.
The surprise eruption of Kasatochi Volcano in the central Aleutians this summer on August 7, turned a small green island rich with seabirds and ocean mammals into a sterile gray lump. Tens of thousands of fledgling auklets and petrels perished in their rocky nests, as Kasatochi erupted for the first time in centuries, smothering under a deep blanket of ash anything that couldn't flee. "Probably 20 percent of auklet chicks were still in their crevices and hadn't left. They were most likely entombed." A couple hundred adult sea lions still encircle the island, but all the year's pups have disappeared. As for the bird habitat? "It's gone pretty much completely."

INDONESIA - Three volcanoes put on second-level alert status - The Bandung-based Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center has increased the status of Semeru volcano in East Java to the second-highest threat level, bringing the total number of volcanoes on that alert level in Indonesia to three. Semeru was the latest volcano to begin showing increased activity. In December last year, the office raised the status of North Sulawesi's Karangetang volcano, and Ibu volcano in North Maluku was also hiked in April that same year. Currently there are 68 active volcanoes in Indonesia, out of a total 129 volcanoes. Nearly 15 of the 68 active volcanoes, including Dempo in South Sumatra and Bromo in East Java, are grouped under the first-level alert status - the lowest of the three levels. The office has warned residents living near Semeru volcano to remain cautious of any potential volcanic disaster.

TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.

INDONESIA - Tropical Cyclone Damages Houses, Crops in East Java - Strong winds damaged buildings and crops in East Java on Thursday afternoon. Thousands of hectares of crops and hundreds of houses in Malang, East Java were damaged by typhoon, one resident was hurt, losses were estimated reaching Rp 2 billion. The typhoon pounded Brongkal Village in Pagelaran district for about three minutes. Around 20,000 hectares of rice plants, 14,000 thousand hectares of sugar cane were flattened, and about 2,000 coconut, mohagony, and other trees were downed causing losses among dozens of farmers up to Rp 300 milion. About 150 houses, two small mosques, and one islamic school are lightly damaged. One resident was lightly injured after being hit by broken roof materials.

AUSTRALIA - Top end again on cyclone watch as a tropical low near Timor has begun to develop into a potentially dangerous system. WeatherZone yesterday observed winds gusting up to 85 kilometres per hour and a central pressure at 1008 hPa and dropping. This system certainly has the ability to intensify into a Tropical Cyclone sometime this week. The low is expected to track westward and speed up over the next day or two, with the central pressure falling to 998 hPa by Tuesday. It is predicted that this low has a moderate chance to form into a Tropical Cyclone within the next three days.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
NORTH DAKOTA, MINNESOTA - RECORD-BREAKING FLOOD waters in North Dakota have breached a dike at a school, swamping the campus. Officials warn the Red River in the city of Fargo will stay at danger level for days, despite peaking on Friday and continuing to recede. The Red River, which crested at midnight on Friday at 40.82ft (12.4m), had dropped to 40.17ft (12.2m) by early Sunday - still more than 22ft (6.7m) above flood level. Officials say up to 30,000 people could be homeless if defenses fail in Fargo, and in Moorhead on the opposite bank. Up to 100,000 people may need to be evacuated in the area. Thousands of people have already fled their homes as the Red River swelled to its HIGHEST LEVEL FOR 112 YEARS, sending water rising to second-floor level in some homes. Emergency crews in boats had to rescue about 150 people from their homes in Minnesota, where about a fifth of households in Moorhead have been urged to leave. Experts say the huge rise in the river's levels was caused by an UNUSUALLY COLD winter, followed by a very quick thaw and heavy rain. (photos)

INDONESIA - The death toll from a burst dam in a Jakarta suburb rose to 97 as rescue workers continued to search for more than 100 people still missing.

HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
Southeast U.S. states experience ‘UNUSUAL springtime storm’ - The spring snow storm that was blamed for two traffic deaths in Oklahoma prompted blizzard warnings and a disaster declaration in Kansas. Tens of thousands of Kansas utility customers were without power Saturday as an early spring blizzard buried parts of the state in snow and ice. The National Weather Service said the heaviest snow had fallen in southwest Kansas, including 28 inches in the Pratt area with 6-foot snow drifts. Heavy winds accompanying the snow forced authorities to close several local and state highways. In Texas, blizzard warnings were in effect until Saturday afternoon for parts of the Texas Panhandle as snow stranded people indoors and left highways closed. The storm also dumped heavy rains, baseball-sized hail and whipped up winds across the Southeast on Saturday, flooding homes and cars in parts of Mississippi and Alabama. About 100 roads in southern Mississippi were impassable at the height of the bad weather because of the flooding. Up to 17 inches had fallen over three days in isolated areas in Alabama and Mississippi. "We have springtime storms. But this is a VERY UNUSUAL springtime storm.”

------------------------------------------

Friday, March 27, 2009 -

"The hardest thing is to see what is in front of your eyes."
Goethe

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/26/09 -
5.6 NORTHWEST OF RYUKYU ISLANDS
5.5 NEAR COAST OF NORTHERN PERU
5.2 TONGA REGION
5.8 MID-INDIAN RIDGE

CALIFORNIA - After the 4.8 quake, the California Emergency Management Agency believed that there was a 1% to 5% chance of a large earthquake (magnitude 7.0 or greater) on the San Andreas Fault over the next few days. They issued a warning to operational Red Cross areas throughout the state. Although there were no damages or injuries reported as a result of this event, The U.S. Geological Survey has been tracking an “unusual sequence” of over 50 aftershocks, that have been clustered about 1 to 3 kilometers southwest of a projected extension of the San Andreas Fault, in the Salton Sea area. “Swarms in the Imperial Valley are not a big deal,. We’re used to that. The reason that this one, and another one in 2001, got significant attention from us is that it’s very close to the San Andreas Fault.” "Based on scientific data, and the fact that these most recent earthquakes have been in close proximity to the San Andreas Fault, there is increased concern that these earthquakes could trigger a large earthquake (M7.0 +) on the San Andreas itself. Historically, a major earthquake on this southern portion of the San Andreas Fault has not occurred in over 300 years, so the probability of a large earthquake is thought by seismologists to be higher than on portions of the fault that have ruptured more recently (e.g. in 1857 and 1906)." “The fictional 7.8 earthquake that was the scenario for the shakeout drill started right here, OK? And this whole section hasn’t broken since 1680, probably, so that’s the reason for the close eye that we keep on it. It’s another straw on a camel’s back, but we don’t know how many are there and we don’t know how many a ‘camel’ can hold.” As each day passes the risk of a large San Andreas earthquake decreases.

VOLCANOES -
ALASKA - Mount Redoubt volcano has exploded anew, hurling ash and smoke high into the atmosphere. At 4.24am AEDT today, the volcano began kicking out fresh debris, now reaching nearly 20,000 meters above sea level. The Alaska Volcano Observatory described the blast as "a major explosive event". Although no injuries have been reported, ash clouds have forced a string of flight cancellations and prompted concern in nearby towns. Authorities have placed the region on red alert, with residents warned to prepare for falling ash.

HAWAII - The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii has released video of a robust brown plume associated with a "hybrid seismic event" on the summit of Kilauea at 11:03 am on Wednesday. Brown plumes like this one have appeared occasionally throughout the past year of eruptive activity at the summit, and are often associated with rockfalls. Wednesday's activity started with at least two more dusty plumes followed by a larger collapse at 11:03 am and a large, dense, brown plume; there were several more brown plumes over the next two hours before settling to a white plume moving southwest from the crater. Meanwhile, a glow from the vent has increased in intensity over the course of the week. The series of brown plumes produced a considerable amount of tephra - at least 100 times the average production rate for the past week or so. The tephra appears mostly reworked with little fresh material consistent with being rockfall material lifted by escaping gas and steam. Sulfur dioxide emission rates reportedly remain elevated and variable. The most recent emission rate was 800 tonnes/day on March 25, compared to the 2003-2007 average rate of 140 tonnes/day. Kilauea summit tremor levels were at elevated values until the hybrid earthquake occurred. Afterwards, tremor levels dropped by more than 50%. (video)

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone IZILDA was 756 nmi WSW of Saint Pierre, Reunion.

MOZAMBIQUE - Floods in Mozambique have left at least 4,000 people homeless and a tropical storm is threatening to make the situation even worse for the nation on the southeastern coast of Africa. The Mozambique National Meteorological Service is warning fishermen to stay on land as Tropical Storm Izilda heads toward the coastal resort of Inhambane at 48 miles per hour (78 kilometers per hour). The tropical storm is expected to make landfall Friday or Saturday and dump torrential rains. In the northern part of the country, heavy rains have already destroyed homes and crops,. Floods have also affected the southern African nations of Angola, Namibia, and Malawi.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
INDONESIA - Deadly dam burst outside Jakarta - A 10-foot high “mini tsunami” crashed through a neighbourhood. Dozens of people are feared dead after the dam burst southwest of the capital Jakarta. Witnesses said a "horrifying" flash flood engulfed hundreds of homes in Cirendeu in the Tangerang district. It is not clear what caused the burst but an official said the Situ Gintung lake behind the dam became overloaded after several hours of heavy rain. At least 32 people have died but officials say dozens more are missing and the death toll is expected to rise. There had been heavy wind and rain overnight with many trees uprooted. People in the area were being evacuated to higher ground. "About half of them are still on rooftops waiting for help."

NORTH DAKOTA - earlier optimism is fading as officials predict the Red River would reach a RECORD-HIGH crest of 43 feet by the weekend. That's 2 feet higher than earlier predicted. The city of Fargo is in "UNCHARTED TERRITORY, because it's a learning curve for all of us, when we get into new levels and so forth." A 1997 flood saw the waterway hit 39.6 feet, but the record of 40.1 feet has stood since 1897.
CANADA - Ice jams, falling snow and rising water upstream in the Red River have put Manitoba at an "UNPRECEDENTED" risk of flood. The cold weather could reduce flood risk by delaying snow melt, but the cold is also causing unpredictable ice jams. "It's quite a weather mess, quite a hydrologic mess we're in." The Canadian military was on standby, prepared to send soldiers in to help place sandbags. The Red River flows north from North Dakota into Manitoba. The river is expected to crest late Friday at Fargo, N.D. Thousands of people might have to evacuate, and a few had already been forced from their homes. At least 30 families left their homes Wednesday north of Winnipeg, as ice packs caused flooding. States of emergency were declared in several communities Wednesday night as crews worked at breaking up ice in streams and culverts to speed the water's northward flow.

WINDS -
WISCONSIN - Midnight blast damages property on north side of Kenosha. A FREAK wind gust early Wednesday morning uprooted trees, fence posts and shook houses, causing a cluster of property damage on the city’s north side. Many residents said it sounded like a freight train, including one who was watching television around midnight Wednesday when his house’s windows began to shake. “We heard this loud banging. My wife was asleep. It scared the dickens out of her, and she came running down the stairs.” The gust was the product of a storm front heading north to south. As the front moved over the area around midnight, winds out of the southeast took a sudden turn and triggered severe winds. “It was almost a 90-degree wind shift, and right along that front was where the strong winds were.” The weather event wasn’t severe enough for it to be classified as a microburst as some initially thought. The National Weather Service recorded a 57 mph wind gust in Dane County, but there were no measured wind gusts in the Kenosha area. Fence posts were ripped from their concrete foundations and tossed into a field to the east. The concrete pieces were cracked and broken as though struck with a sledgehammer. Part of a street sign was embedded in the fence. A crab tree was snapped off at ground level. A 400-pound grill was shoved to an opposite corner of a deck, along with a group of patio furniture. A piece of glass also is missing from a patio table. A swingset was broken and dropped in a neighbor’s yard — next to a twisted trampoline that had come from another property to the north. Shingles and pieces from a neighbor’s exploded shed were strewn across yards and into the street. “It was windy and then all of a sudden it was just a really increasingly scary noise. It came as quite the shock in the neighborhood to everybody.” One of the shed panels crashed into the side of a home, and knocked pictures off the wall. “Whatever it was, it grabbed that stuff pretty well. There was a roar, but it wasn’t an ongoing roar. It was like a quick three-, four-second roar. The house shook and then I bailed out.” One man said he'd experienced earthquakes, but nothing like what he experienced early Wednesday. “It was scary, and I’m just glad nobody was hurt."

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

NEW YORK - Red Flag warning - This month's dry weather is leading to an UNUSUAL increase in grass fires throughout New York State.

SPACE WEATHER-
The frequency of cosmic ray "hits" correlates closely with a rare and sudden warming of the stratosphere called, appropriately, a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW). An SSW can affect both the severity of winters in northern regions and levels of ozone over the poles. Being able to detect and study these events will help weather forecasters and climate modelers improve their predictions. "The advantage of this technique is, we have [cosmic ray] records from various experiments in the world that go back several decades. Now we can go back in the historical records and see [how cosmic ray data correlates with stratospheric weather events over long periods of time]. People trying to figure out how weather in the upper atmosphere works will have another tool to build models of it." In the Arctic and Antarctic, winds whip around the poles in a circular pattern called a polar vortex. But if the heart of the vortex can be likened to the eye of a hurricane, sometimes that eye wobbles off center and causes various weather events. "It's as if the vortex is taking an excursion." From wobbling of the vortex to SSWs to weather on the ground, everything is connected "but it's not a simple correlation." SSWs occur on average about every other year, but they are dramatic: In just a few days the temperature can shoot up as much as 75 Fahrenheit degrees and stay there for a couple of weeks. And they have been devilishly unpredictable. But maybe now that will change. (cool photo)

------------------------------------------

Thursday, March 26, 2009 -

A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -
We commit atrocities because we believe absurdities.
Voltaire

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/25/09 -
5.3 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.2 TONGA REGION
5.2 TONGA REGION

VOLCANOES -
ALASKA - The U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Volcano Observatory finally released a batch of photos from of Mount Redoubt Volcano, which has erupted explosively six times since Sunday evening. Some of the more dramatic were taken on Monday.

Volcano plumes spin like tornadoes - a phenomenon the researchers call a "volcanic mesocyclone." The columns of ash and gas that spew from erupting volcanoes behave just like tornadoes, a new study suggests. Volcanic plumes have been known to spawn waterspouts and dust devils, as well as sheaths of lightning around their roiling debris clouds.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone IZILDA was 734 nmi WSW of Saint Pierre, Reunion.
Cyclone JASPER was 957 nmi E of Townsville, Australia.

SPACE WEATHER-
ZIMBABWE - March 1, 2009 - A large rock, weighing about 100 kilogrammes fell from the “sky,” in Nkayi at the beginning of the month, shocking villagers while at the same time sending the whole district wild with excitement and speculation. The stone, which many villagers now believe is a gift from God, fell with a thunderous noise in Madlilika Village in the Mjena area of Lukampa at about 5pm on 1 March. It fell five metres from two villagers who were herding cattle in the bush. Villagers from the area said they heard a thunderous sound coming from the “sky,” and another sound resembling a bomb exploding. “The noise later fizzled into a sound similar to one made by an aircaft on take-off before dying away." People from the area believe the rock could have been a special gift from God containing very precious minerals while others believe that it could have been sent by their ancestors in a bid to communicate something to them. They have since vowed to jealously guard it until they get a satisfactory explanation on what it symbolises or what mineral it contains. The villagers believe that the unique stone could turn out to be something of great significance. “There is a lot of speculation at the moment but one thing for sure is that no one seems to think it is a bad omen, although people were initially shocked by the incident. A number of people touched the stone and nothing has happened to them but the strongest belief seems to be that it is a precious stone." The unique sound which accompanied the rock made some people believe that there was something supernatural about it. The rock was heard in the entire Lukampa area as well as Matshena, Mbuma and Nkalathi areas. The rock weighs 15kg and is black and very smooth outside. It is grey inside. The object could be a meteorite that dropped to earth from outer space. “I would say maybe a small meteorite." Numerous people have over the years reported sounds being heard while bright meteors flared overhead. While some scientists have dismissed the idea of sounds accompanying meteors, given the relatively slow speed of sound, sound recordings made under controlled conditions in Mongolia in 1998 by a physicist support the contention that the sounds are real.

The sun has been without spots for nearly a month, but the blank spell could be coming to an end. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is monitoring intense activity on the sun's northeastern limb - the source could be a sunspot located just over the horizon. We'll know within the next 24 hours. Solar rotation is turning the active region toward Earth, and by March 27th direct viewing should be possible.

"We're moving closer and closer to the edge of a possible disaster" - Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences. It sounds ridiculous. Surely the sun couldn't create a profound disaster on Earth. Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciencesin January this year claims it could do just that.
The projections of just how catastrophic make chilling reading. Imagine it is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power. A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun. The incursion of the plasma into our atmosphere causes rapid changes in the configuration of Earth's magnetic field which, in turn, induce currents in the long wires of the power grids. It's just the opposite of how we usually think of natural disasters. Usually the less developed regions of the world are most vulnerable, not the highly sophisticated technological regions." If it is dark from the eastern seaboard to Chicago, some affected areas are hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away from anyone who might help. And those willing to help are likely to be ill-equipped to deal with the sheer scale of the disaster. The "perfect storm" is most likely on a spring or autumn night in a year of heightened solar activity - something like 2012. Around the equinoxes, the orientation of the Earth's field to the sun makes us particularly vulnerable to a plasma strike. It could come in the next three or four years. "It could conceivably be the worst natural disaster possible...A really large storm could be a planetary disaster."

------------------------------------------

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 -

"If you don't know what to do,
then you probably shouldn't do it."
Yogi Berra

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/24/09 -
5.1 NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
5.9 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.2 NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.0 GUAM REGION
5.0 NORTHERN XINJIANG, CHINA

CALIFORNIA - Dozens of small earthquakes continued to rattle a desert area today about 90 miles east of San Diego. On Tuesday a magnitude 4.8 shaker hit the small desert town of Bombay Beach, near the Salton Sea. Since then, swarms of smaller quakes keep coming. The biggest one on Wednesday morning was a magnitude 3.5. Hardly anyone lives out there and there have been no reports of injuries or damage. Caltech scientists are keeping close watch on the increased activity because it is near a section of the San Andreas Fault that has not broken loose in more than 300 years.
There's about a 5 percent chance that a 4.8 quake will be followed by a larger quake, but the odds drop sharply if no quake occurs in the hours immediately afterwards.

MYSTERY BOOMS -
SOUTH CAROLINA - 3/20/09 - A loud noise was heard shortly before 3 a.m. Friday morning in Aiken, Richmond and Columbia counties. Local law enforcement agencies also report hearing the boom, but no one knows what caused it. Two Aiken County Sheriff’s Office deputies reportedly saw a fireball in the sky.
From the heavens came a fire ball, and a boom. Aiken is a town that’s not easily fooled, and is questioning the reports that the flash, and bang in the early morning sky, was a meteor. “I’ve heard the meteorite story, I’ve heard the airplane sonic boom story, I don’t know." "I’m not buying the meteor explanation, no."
There is a report that power was lost over downtown Augusta, Georgia (at least) at around 3am that morning. It was restored by 4am. Of course, this could be a coincidence with the timing of the boom. Since the collision of Russian and American satellites on Feb. 10, 2009, there have been a number of similar (unexplained) incidents reported (booms, meteor-like objects, etc.).
Video evidence of boom and light - 3 property surveillance tapes captured odd footage. “...area right here, where the little swirl came down…there it went! There it went!“ The amazed owner never heard the sound…but after hearing reports, she believes she’s recorded light from the unidentified “object” that was seen and heard all over the CSRA, Friday morning. She has 3 surveillance cameras that captured 3 different images from that morning. Two cameras show something falling…this object fell a few seconds before the flash on the deck was seen…the other happened 42 seconds after the flash. A meteorite hunter is plotting points on a map of the area to try and pinpoint exactly where debris fell.

VOLCANOES -
ALASKA - The Redoubt Volcano Webcam feed was initially downed by the ash but "spontaneously" restarted Monday afternoon. Between Sunday and Monday night, Redoubt Volcano erupted six times, sending a volcanic ash cloud 9.5 miles (15 kilometers) into the sky, dusting nearby towns, sparking a swarm of earthquakes, and spurring massive mudflows. Based on seismic data, a lava dome appears to be forming in the volcano's crater. Early data suggest the volcano could continue erupting for days or even months. "I doubt this eruption is over. In fact, it may be just beginning."

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone IZILDA was 745 nmi W of Saint Pierre, Reunion.
Cyclone JASPER was 957 nmi E of Townsville, Australia

Cyclone Jasper is forecast to strike New Caledonia at about 04:00 GMT on 26 March.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
Floods cause havoc in US Midwest - North Dakota has been declared a federal disaster area because of RECORD SPRING FLOODING across the mid-Western state. Floodwaters from the Red River, which is expected to peak later this week, have closed roads and bridges. National guardsmen and volunteers are reinforcing flood defences. The rising waters are also affecting the neighbouring state of Minnesota which, like North Dakota, borders the Red River on its route towards Canada. A blizzard has brought snow and freezing rain to the area and high winds have knocked out the electricity supply to some towns in the state. The snowfall has blocked hundreds of miles of highways and roads in North Dakota and the neighbouring states of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska. The extreme flatness of the Red River Valley means the overflowing water tends to go wide, move slowly and take weeks to recede because the soil is increasingly saturated. "You will have an extremely wide river." A waterway that now measures 100 yards wide "might turn into between a mile and a mile-and-a-half". An ice jam blocking the Missouri River burst today, sending a further surge of water downstream towards North Dakota's capital Bismarck, where flooding has already led to some evacuations in low-lying areas. The floods may delay planting of the largest US spring-wheat crop. The Missouri flows south and east, eventually joining the Mississippi River. (photo / map)
Monday's blizzard in the Northern Plains was pretty EXTREME. Rapid City, South Dakota tells the story well - the wind gusts there have been over 60 mph for more than 24 hours, while the temperature has fallen from freezing to 22 degrees F. Monday afternoon, they reported a thunderstorm with heavy snow and near-zero visibility from 1 PM to 4 PM, then overnight, they gusted to 97 mph during heavy ice fog with zero visibility.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

Australians Face Climate Change Relocation - Senior government officials in Victoria are warning residents of towns on the Murray River that they could become the first Australians to be displaced by climate change. The region has suffered at the hands of a long-running drought that many scientists and politicians have blamed on global warming. The very dry conditions have restricted the flow of water into a river that is part of the Murray-Darling Basin, which provides much of Australia's food, prompting dire warnings about the future. Flows into the once mighty Murray River have fallen significantly, in recent years. Its health is indelibly linked to the prosperity of many large agricultural towns in southeastern Australia. A senior Victorian government official has warned that the Murray River crisis is so severe that those living near its banks are "pretty close" to becoming "Australia's first climate-change refugees." Other parts of Australia are also vulnerable. Unlike towns near the Murray River, communities along Queensland's popular Gold Coast are threatened by rising sea levels. Much of the region south of Brisbane is low-lying and exposed to serious flooding with residents facing the real prospect of being forced to move. The city council is spending millions boosting its coastal defenses. "We accept that climate change is a reality. We are very susceptible on the eastern coast. The Gold Coast is probably the most vulnerable city in the whole of Australia and the kind of mapping that I've seen come from reliable sources is quite frightening." Although not everyone believes that a shifting climate is the result of man's excesses, most Australians think that behavior has to change. A long-standing drought and water restrictions in most major cities and regional farming areas have helped to focus their minds on the environment.

Global warming 37% to blame for droughts - Global warming is more than a third to blame for a major drop in rainfall that includes a decade-long drought in Australia and a lengthy dry spell in the United States, a scientist said today. What he found was an underlying trend where rainfall over the past 15 years or so has been steadily decreasing, with global warming 37 percent responsible for the drop. "The 37 percent is probably going to increase if global warming continues." There are four regions where rainfall has been declining. The affected areas were the continental United States, southeastern Australia, a large region of equatorial Africa and the Altiplano in South America. But there were two areas in the tropics where rainfall has been increasing -- northwestern Australia and the Amazon Basin. "This is all part of a global pattern where the rainfall is generally increasing in the equatorial tropics and decreasing in the sub-tropics in mid-latitudes. This is a little bit like the pattern that the (computer) models predict for global warming but this is coming out of the rainfall observations of the past 30 years." The rainfall trend was also accompanied by a trend in global sea surface temperatures. Sea surface temperatures have been rising as the atmosphere warms. The Atlantic conveyor belt was 27 percent to blame for the decreased rainfall, while the two Pacific ocean circulation patterns were 30 percent responsible.

SPACE WEATHER-
80-ton asteroid's impact recorded - Scientists from Queen's University in Belfast have become the first to study an asteroid before it impacts with Earth. The asteroid in question, 2008 TC3, weighed 80 tonnes and had a diameter of four metres. It landed in the Nubian Desert in Sudan last October, where it scattered after exploding at an altitude of 37km. "This was the first ever predicted impact of an asteroid with the Earth and the very first time an asteroid of any size has been studied before impact." Fifteen meteorites were recovered over an area 29km-long along the calculated approach path of the asteroid. "The recovered meteorites were unlike anything in our meteorite collections up to that point. The asteroid has been confirmed as a rare type called F-class, corresponding to dark ureilite achondrite meteorites with a texture and composition unlike any other ureilite meteorites found on earth before." Comparing the asteroid and meteorite data tells us that 2008 TC3 may have only spent a few million years existing in the inner Solar system before it hit our planet. "Larger impacts of the size associated with the Tunguska event of 1908 occur every few hundred years and even larger impacts with asteroids and comets the size of mountains occur every few tens of millions of years."

Unusual Wave Clouds over the Aral Sea - Distinctive lines of clouds stretch out from the shore of the Aral Sea in this photo-like image captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on March 12, 2009. While wave clouds like this are not unusual, this particular pattern over the Aral Sea is HIGHLY UNUSUAL. The clouds conform exactly to the shape of the western shore.

TASMANIA - 3/21/09 - UNUSUAL lights that sparked a wave of concern were probably a meteor or space junk. The unusual trail of lights seen speeding across the sky on Saturday afternoon was most likely a natural phenomenon. But the source of the mystery lights remains unknown. Police took dozens of calls about 1.30pm from people around the state who saw the lights heading south. Police said the sightings had triggered fears that a plane or a meteor was about to crash. If the light had been a meteor, it was likely to have either burnt up before it reached the ground or landed somewhere in the ocean.

------------------------------------------

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 -

We wield godlike technology with a great deal of foolishness.
E.O. Wilson

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/23/09 -
5.0 NORTH OF HALMAHERA, INDONESIA
5.2 TONGA REGION
5.5 CARLSBERG RIDGE

VOLCANOES -
ALASKA - Mount Redoubt volcano has erupted for the sixth time in 24 hours, spewing ash and steam 15km (9.3 miles) into the air. The volcano, 166km (103 miles) south-west of the state's biggest city, Anchorage, began erupting late on Sunday after a 20-year lull. Ash has fallen on towns north of Anchorage, but the city itself has not been affected by the eruption. Alaskan Airlines has cancelled a number of flights because of the ash. Officials at the Alaska Volcano Observatory were able to monitor the latest eruption live via a webcam. "We were able to see mudflows, pyroclastic flows and a nice ash column shooting out of the summit... If it is anything like the 1989 eruption, we could expect activity to continue for three to four months." (map)

TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
Spotting risky rock formations that are about to collapse and trigger tsunamis could be done with the help of Google Earth, new research suggests. The software could prove a useful tool where other types of survey prove too difficult or expensive. One such spot has just been found in the Caribbean. "We were doing fieldwork on the volcanic island of Dominica in the Lesser Antilles and initially just used Google Earth to identify good study areas. But with its 3D flyover tool, we quickly got excellent direct glimpses of a slab or rock that may soon cause a tsunami. " They found plenty of evidence that this block of coastline is a landslide waiting to happen. "The flank is undercut by erosion from the sea and we saw scars from recent landslides and tension cracks above the block. Earthquakes are common in the area and we are pretty sure it's going to go soon." The researchers have calculated that when the rock tumbles into the sea, it could trigger a tsunami of up to 3 metres high. Though that is smaller than the waves of the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami, the coast of the island Guadeloupe is only 40 kilometres away and has vulnerable flat beaches. What's more, if other blocks above the problem slab were destabilised by a larger earthquake or movement of the slab itself, a much larger tsunami could result.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone 24S was 765 nmi W of Saint Pierre, Reunion.
Cyclone ILSA was 1324 nmi ESE of Diego Garcia.
Cyclone JASPER was 796 nmi E of Townsville, Australia.

Tropical Cyclone Jasper has strengthened to a category two storm over seas off the state's north, but still poses no immediate threat to Queensland.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
COLORADO - Mud storm blankets Vail Valley - High winds before rain and snow carried dirt to Vail Valley. The crowd of mud-splattered Vail Valley vehicles lined up behind the Eagle River Car Wash Monday afternoon looked like an off-roading after party. But the exceptionally dirty cars were really victims of a mud storm that hit the area Sunday night, a forerunner to the cold spell and snow that came in overnight. “It’s UNUSUAL. When you wash your car you expect snow or rain soon afterward - not mud.” The dirty rain was part of the storm that brought three inches to the Vail Valley Sunday night. The storm was preceded by high winds of up to 43 miles per hour, which kicked dust into the air. “There were strong winds in front of (the storm). That dirty air from further west made it eastward, then showers brought it all down. The western Colorado counties got it the worst.” The dirty rain was reported as far west as Grand Junction.

MINNESOTA - Volunteers are working 24-7 to raise dikes to block the Red River's flow, but this week's forecast calls for even more rain and snow. After a day of sandbagging to fill gaps in permanent dikes, residents and officials of Breckenridge believed they were protected 1 foot higher than the 19-foot crest predicted to pass through the city beginning at midday today. Thousands of volunteers up and down the Red River Valley toiled mightily Monday as potential record flooding threatened those along the north-flowing river. In Fargo, sandbaggers worked to fill nearly 2 million sandbags ahead of Thursday's anticipated crest. "This is coming up way faster than in 1997. We had a lot more time then." By this morning, the prospects seemed to be improving. The Red River in Breckenridge and neighboring Wapheton, N.D., was expected to crest at 19 feet, about a foot lower than initially thought. And in Fargo, the National Weather Service says the Red should crest at 40 feet early Friday. An emergency dike system to protect downtown was being raised to 42 feet, but some low-lying neighborhoods were threatened. The river was at 25 feet on Monday and rising. Already main roads -- Interstate 29 on the North Dakota side and Hwy. 75 in Minnesota -- were closed. According to the National Weather Service, as much as an inch of rain could fall before turning tonight to snow that will linger through the rest of the week. That could be a mixed blessing. Colder weather will slow the melting that is feeding the flood, but it will make it tougher for volunteers to erect the cities' flood defenses.

HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
New report predicts "New Global Ice Age" - "The reality is that there are forces at work, already affecting the weather for the past two years, that will make the next twelve years significantly cooler than anything we have seen in past decades. This report explores these forces and provides a roadmap of what to expect as the new ice age unfolds." "Unfettered by the Gore-Tex straitjacket of global warming dogma, one might ask some obvious questions. Why, in 2008, did Toronto, the Midwest United States, India, China, the United Kingdom and several areas of Europe all break summer rainfall records? Why was South Africa converted into a 'winter wonderland' this past September? Why did Alaska record its coldest summer this year -- cold enough for ice packs and glaciers to grow for the first time in measured history? Why has sea ice achieved record levels in recent months? Lastly, why did a rare October snow fall on London, on the 29th, as British Parliament debated -- appropriately enough -- a climate bill?

VERMONT - The 2008-2009 winter across Vermont and much of the North Country was wild, marked by temperature swings, lots of precipitation and even a rare weather phenomenon on Lake Champlain. In December the most dramatic event was the ice storm that moved through the region on Dec. 11-12. This storm played havoc with air travel in southern New England and left millions without electricity. The ice storm this winter was very complex. January 2009 saw more flip-flops, both in terms of temperature, as well as in the amount of precipitation around the state. January had bone-chilling temperatures which set new records across the state. Many of Lake Champlain's bays froze over (and remained so until the first week of March), with ice fishing enthusiasts reporting some of the thickest ice seen in years. Why these temperature swings? The January cold snap was marked by an unusually strong and very extensive high pressure system that formed over the central states and expanded to encompass the entire eastern half of North America. How did this extraordinarily high pressure – with its frigid, dense air – develop and persist? When the North Atlantic Oscillation system near Iceland is dominated by high pressure and that near Gibraltar by low pressure, we experience the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. In this case, cold Arctic air invades eastern North America and Europe, as we saw here in January. On a somewhat different note, Jan. 15 also marked the rare occurrence of a waterspout in Lake Champlain, the second one on record since 1954. One of the month's highlights was the blizzard of Feb. 22-23. The town of Sutton was at the center of this swath of snow, where 20.6 inches fell on that day alone. 24-hour snowfall amounts set new daily records that were only superseded as a monthly record by the Valentine's Day blizzard of 2007.

NORTH DAKOTA - Up-and-down temperature pattern likely to continue - The early part of this late winter and early spring season has been marked by impressive turnarounds in temperature. This began on the final day of January, when our temperature suddenly rose to 44 degrees. This was followed by a rare early February rainstorm. Then February grew very cold again, and this cold lasted through the blizzard of March 10. Such an up-and-down temperature pattern is a common product of the Pacific Ocean weather pattern known as La Nina, which has been building for the past few months.

------------------------------------------

Monday, March 23, 2009 -

“Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.”
George Bernard Shaw

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/22/09 -
5.3 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.2 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.0 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

AUSTRALIA - While the Australian continent is edging its way towards the north-east of the globe at a rate of about seven centimetres a year, the islands of the Pacific are moving towards them in a westerly direction at much the same speed. The result: an underwater volcano erupting on Monday in the South Pacific, an earthquake shaking Victoria on Wednesday, and a much larger quake near Tonga that caused a tsunami alert in the region. The events are linked by the fact that the country sits in the middle of a large tectonic plate, the Indian-Australian plate, which is crashing into the Pacific Plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. A build-up of stress in the plate was released near Korumburra, to the south-east of Melbourne, in a magnitude 4.6 earthquake on March 6. While not surprising, a second earthquake of the same size at the same spot on Wednesday afternoon was an "unusual" event for Australia. The first earthquake transferred new stresses further along the geological fault line, which were eventually released in last week's tremor.

VIRGINIA - The big earthquake near the Pacific island nation of Tonga sent seismic waves around the world. The impulse was felt in a USGS monitoring well in Christianburg, in southwest Virginia, where water levels surged as the seismic wave passed through the surrounding rock. This well is especially sensitive to seismic signals, and regularly responds to big quakes around the world. (graph)

VOLCANOES -
ALASKA - Mount Redoubt volcano has erupted, sending a cloud of ash 15km (50,000ft) into the air. The volcano, 166km (103 miles) from Anchorage, erupted late on Sunday, with three more explosions early on Monday. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has issued a red alert, meaning an eruption with significant amounts of ash is imminent or under way. Forecasters at the National Weather Service said they expected fine ash to begin falling later on Monday morning. "The ash cloud went to 50,000 feet and it's currently drifting towards the north-east." The web camera near the volcano is no longer functioning. (photo)

TONGA - The powerful underwater volcano that erupted in the south Pacific this week has created a new island off the coast of Tonga. The eruption, about 39 miles north-west of the Tongan capital, Nuku'alofa, began last Monday, shooting rocks, steam and ash thousands of feet into the air. The volcano had two vents, one on a small uninhabited island and another about 100 metres (330ft) offshore. Rock and ash spewing from the sea have filled the gap between the two vents, creating a new land mass measuring hundreds of square metres. Around 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered in the surrounding area. (photo)
All life has been extinguished on the tiny South Pacific island engulfed by an undersea volcano off the coast of Tonga, say witnesses who made a daring trip to the scene. A boatload of sightseers narrowly escaped a hot blast of poisonous gases and ash as their vessel neared the uninhabited island of Hunga Ha’apai. “There was a huge explosion and the smoke was coming towards us. People were yelling, ‘Start the boat, start the boat’ . . . we were a bit shaken, actually.” The sightseers found dead birds and fish floating in the water. The island was shrouded in black ash. Only the stumps of coconut trees remained. The volcano has sent spectacular columns of smoke skywards since it erupted last Monday. It has already reshaped the island and expanded it by thousands of square feet. There has been no danger to people on the main Tongan island of Tongatapu.

RUSSIA - Eruption of the Koryak Volcano in the Kamchatka region is menacing Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy - If ash emissions occur it will pose actual danger to operation of the local airport. There are few seismic acquisition systems in close vicinity to the volcano. And the majority of the systems are focused on nearby Avachinskiy Volcano. There is only one station designed for detection of Koryak volcano activity, but this is not enough. The eruption of the Koryak, which is situated in 28-30 km fron Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, occurred in December 2008. The scientists say that it is difficult to calculate the possible scenario of the volcano eruption. (photo)

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone ILSA was 1409 nmi ESE of Diego Garcia.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
NAMIBIA - The UN reports more than 200000 people have been affected by heavy flooding and nearly 100 killed, although that figure is expected to go higher.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

PAKISTAN - there are certain weather patterns being observed in Karachi and its adjoining geographical region. These include declining intensity of monsoon rains and rising frequency of occurrence of tropical cyclones in Arabian Sea. Initial studies of the weather patterns have suggested that Karachi and its adjoining areas come under the effect of extreme weather with decreased intensity of regular weather patterns owing to climatic changes including global warming. The decreasing trend of monsoon rains in the region is the latest area of concern for experts related to fields of Meteorology and Geography. “Researchers associated with University of Dundee Scotland have claimed that the phenomena of monsoon rains in South Asia would end by 2012. In this backdrop, there is a lot of work that should be done locally to verify this theory, as a lot of socio-economic processes in the region are heavily dependent upon monsoon rains." Then there are UNUSUAL weather events such as the occurrence of three tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea near the Karachi coast in 2007 alone. The patterns and intensity of monsoon rains in the region has been of much interest for meteorological and geophysics experts of both India and Pakistan. If it is established scientifically that the region will experience a year of El-Nino (Southern Oscillation) in the near future, there is a greater chance that there will be low prevalence of monsoon rains during 2009.

------------------------------------------

Sunday, March 22, 2009 -

Just the quake update.
A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -
“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.” Oscar Wilde

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/21/09 -
5.0 TONGA REGION
5.1 TONGA REGION
3/20/09 -
5.0 PHILIPPINE ISLANDS REGION
5.1 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 VANUATU
5.4 FIJI REGION
5.2 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
5.1 TONGA REGION
5.3 TONGA REGION
5.0 TONGA REGION

------------------------------------------

Friday, March 20, 2009 -

I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society, except that which makes the road safer,
the beer stronger, the old men and women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
Brendan Behan

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/19/09 -
5.0 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.0 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.2 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.2 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.0 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.4 TONGA REGION
7.9 TONGA REGION
5.0 CRETE, GREECE
3/18/09 -
5.3 MINAHASA, SULAWESI, INDONESIA
5.7 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.0 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.0 POTOSI, BOLIVIA
5.0 SOUTH OF KERMADEC ISLANDS

AUSTRALIA - 'Swarm of earthquakes' interests seismologists - Experts are investigating the third earthquake to hit eastern Victoria this year and say it is impossible to know whether further earthquakes will occur. The magnitude 4.6 quake Wednesday afternoon was centred near Korumburra in Gippsland in eastern Victoria and was felt up to 200 kilometres away. It struck close to the epicentre of another earthquake that shook the region 12 days ago, and a smaller tremor was felt in January. Nearby residents reported their houses shaking and experienced as many as three aftershocks. It is UNUSUAL for earthquakes of the same magnitude to happen in such a short period of time. "That's certainly creating a lot of interest for our researchers here in that we have a small swarm of earthquakes occurring, suggesting that one single movement hasn't been significant to allow the stresses to settle. I would expect that we probably could feel some more."

TONGA - A 7.9 magnitude earthquake about 200km (130 miles) south-east of Tonga has triggered a tsunami warning in the South Pacific, but no damage is reported. The quake hit at 0618 local time (1818 GMT) at a depth of 10km (6.2 miles). The tremor, which residents from Fiji to New Zealand reported feeling, was followed two hours later by an after-shock of 5.3 magnitude. "A long, low rolling motion" from the quake was reported by residents on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island - more than 3,000 km (1,875 miles) from the quake's epicentre. A regional tsunami warning was issued, but withdrawn just over an hour and a half later. A resident of the Tongan capital Nuku'alofa said there was no sign of significant damage or of a tsunami after the shallow quake. This was surprising. "Quite remarkable, given the magnitude of it. We might have gotten off lightly. The house really moved, the trees were swaying and the ground was rippling." People in low lying areas of Fiji fled for higher ground. Several earthquakes have been felt in Tonga recently and an undersea volcano has been erupting off the coast of the main island Tongatapu, although it was not considered to be a threat to people in the area. (photo)

MYSTERY BOOMS -
OHIO - 3/18/09 - The Ashtabula County Emergency Management Agency fielded between six and 12 calls this morning from people who say they felt a small earthquake. The calls regarding the tremor came in around 9:45 a.m. Officials in Ashtabula sent the info along to the Ohio Seismic Network for further investigation. There were no reports of any injuries or damage. Earthquakes and tremors are not uncommon in northeast Ohio especially along the lake shore. [no quakes recorded in Ohio on the USGS site]

ALABAMA - 3/12/09 - News 5 received reports from Spanish Fort to the Mississippi state line about a big boom around 2:00 p.m. that shook their homes. So far, no one has an answer for it. The National Weather Service had no reports. The USGS is not showing any signs of seismic activity in the area. In fact, the closest earthquake to Mobile within the past week was 718 miles away in Sullivan, Missouri on Saturday night. Eglin Air Force Base says they were not doing any training flights that afternoon which could've caused a sonic boom. And both the Mobile County Sheriff's Office and EMA report nothing unusual. But something definitely happened and it caused a lot of concern. Especially for a West Mobile woman who says dishes fell out of her cabinets and broke on the floor. Whatever it was, it appeared to have come from the West and moved East.

VOLCANOES -
TONGA - Scientists sailed Thursday [before the large quake] to inspect an undersea volcano that was erupting for days near Tonga - shooting smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet (meters) into the sky above the South Pacific ocean. Authorities said Thursday the eruption did not pose any danger to islanders at this stage, and there have been no reports of fish or other animals being affected. Spectacular columns are spewing out of the sea about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the southwest coast off the main island of Tongatapu - an area where up to 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered. Trade winds continued to blow gas and steam away from the island Thursday. Coastal villages close to the roiling ocean site were not yet at risk and no warnings had been issued. Coastal residents said the steam and ash column first appeared on Monday morning, after a series of sharp earthquakes were felt in the capital, Nuku'alofa. "This is not unusual for this area and we expect this to happen here at any time." Large amounts of pumice thrown up by the erupting volcano would likely clog beaches on the southern coast of nearby Fiji islands within a short time. (3 photos)

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone ILSA was 892 nmi W of Broome, Australia.

AUSTRALIA - Queensland braces for weekend cyclone - North and central Queensland will be on cyclone alert over the weekend as the weather bureau monitors a tropical low about 600km northeast of Mackay.

FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
Global crisis 'to strike by 2030' - Growing world population will cause a "perfect storm" of food, energy and water shortages by 2030, the UK government chief scientist has warned. By 2030 the demand for resources will create a crisis with dire consequences. Demand for food and energy will jump 50% by 2030 and for fresh water by 30%, as the population tops 8.3 billion. Climate change will exacerbate matters in unpredictable ways. "It's a perfect storm. There's not going to be a complete collapse, but things will start getting really worrying if we don't tackle these problems." The looming crisis will match the current one in the banking sector. "There will be food and water shortages." The United Nations Environment Programme predicts widespread water shortages across Africa, Europe and Asia by 2025.

PHILIPPINES - Mango production shortage expected in Pangasinan - Pangasinan is one of the top producers of mango in the country but the industry was severely affected by Typhoon Cosme which hit the province in May 2008.

MYANMAR - Salt production in some Myanmar's cyclone-hit areas has been suspended as salt fields in the areas were destroyed by rain.

INDIA - Cotton production drops - "The weather was not supportive of the cotton crop in 2008-09. Unseasonal rains and insufficient cold wave played a significant role in drop in production."

AUSTRALIA - Heatwave crushes the grape harvest - The three weeks in near record heatwave conditions in January left their mark.

------------------------------------------

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 -

When Irish eyes are smiling, watch your step.
Gerald Kersh

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/17/09 -
5.0 PAKISTAN
5.0 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
5.0 NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA REGION

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone KEN was 1470 nmi ENE of Auckland, New Zealand.
Cyclone TWENTYTWO was 571 nmi WNW of Broome, Australia.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
NAMIBIA - the president on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in areas hit by what he said could be SOME OF THE WORST FLOODS IN RECENT MEMORY. "It is with a heavy heart that I declare an emergency for the north-central and north-eastern parts of Namibia." 92 people have drowned since flooding began in early February and 5,032 people have been left homeless in the southern African country. "Crop fields are submerged in water and I send out an urgent appeal to the international community for assistance ... as the current flood is worse than a year ago and could be one of the worst in recent memory." Floods that struck Namibia at about the same time last year killed 42 people and displaced thousands.

HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
ILLINOIS - Bizarre winter may have lasting effects - Freezing cold and freakish warmth throw nature for a loop. Experts say their peculiar winter, which officially ends Friday, may indeed have some lasting effects on the fauna and flora of greater Chicago. The bitter, sub-zero freeze of January might have slain swarms of city rats, while the lashing winds might have fatally sucked the moisture from some evergreen trees. But the snow that blanketed the ground for much of the season insulated the subterranean lairs of mice and shrews, while the heavy rains created mosquito havens. And the burst of mid-March warmth might actually mean trouble for trees like the magnolia, which could begin to bud early only to be smacked with a crippling, early spring freeze. "That'll bring everything to a screeching halt."

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

Climate change is starting to have profound effects on marine ecosystems. Species are being driven into higher latitudes and deeper waters, which is bad news for countries like Chile and China. Climate change is already causing disruption to marine ecosystems, according to a series of talks given at this years' American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting. Oceans are both warming and acidifying, and the effects are different from those traditionally faced by the conservation community, which is having to learn how to use new tools and adapt itself to this brave new world. Projections point to a migration towards higher latitudes and deeper water as species seek out more hospitable habitats. Practically, this means local extinctions in traditional fishing areas (already being witnessed in the Bering Sea), and species invasion into others. Countries are going to lose fish stocks to their neighbors, something we're already seeing with jumbo squid and salmon. Predictions are that Norway, Greenland, and Alaska are going to be the biggest winners, with China, the mainland US, Indonesia, and Chile losing the most.

FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
KENYA is battling a drought that has left some 10 million people, a third of the population, needing food aid and led the government to declare a state of national emergency. ZIMBABWE, southern Africa's former breadbasket, has been suffering a humanitarian crisis and chronic food shortages. South Africa, the continent's biggest maize producer, has now exported a total of 1.84 million tonnes of both white and yellow maize since the beginning of the marketing season, which runs from May to April. The country exported only 469,059 tonnes in the whole of the previous season in 2007/08. Exports to Kenya have reached 258,219 tonnes, compared with none in the 2007/08 season, while Zimbabwe has so far bought a total of 470,934 tonnes of both white and yellow maize, compared with 45,668 for the whole of the previous season.

TEXAS - The state's ongoing drought has cost the state’s farmers and ranchers nearly $1 billion, and losses could continue to mount this spring.

MOZAMBIQUE - At least 30,000 people in the northwestern Mozambican province of Tete are facing severe food shortages.

NORTH KOREA - As many as 8.7 million people need food aid in the country.

INDIA - After mangoes, freak weather has hit grapes. Rains coupled with hailstorm that lashed Nashik over the past two days have damaged over 45% of the grape crop, besides some varieties of mango and vegetables like tomatoes and cauliflowers.

CANADA - Canadian Red River flooding may delay crop seeding - Flooding in the Canadian end of the Red River Valley will be one of the worst ever with average weather, the Manitoba government said Monday in its latest forecast. The Canadian Wheat Board expects the flood to be significant enough that it may cause farmers in the southern part of the Prairie province to change their minds about what they grow. A blizzard in the northern states of North Dakota and Minnesota last week worsened the flood projection, with well above average snow now on the ground there. A moderate to large flood could delay seeding on 200,000 to 250,000 acres in Manitoba and prompt farmers to plant soybeans, which can be planted late in the spring, instead of wheat. Corn growers on the edges of the Red River valley may also consider soybeans if the flood reaches them.

The world will need an extra 10 billion tonnes of food by 2025, according to some forecasts.

The NOAA foresees drought of considerable duress - largely irreversible for 1,000 years - and identifies the following key regions as facing permanent Dust Bowls:
U.S. Southwest
Southeast Asia
Eastern South America
Southern Europe
Southern Africa
Northern Africa
Western Australia
“Extreme drought is likely to increase from under 3% of the globe today to 30% by 2100 and areas affected by severe drought could see a five-fold increase from 8% to 40%.” The California drought is anticipated to be the worst in modern times. Already thousands of acres of crops are fallow, with no sign of slowing. Furthermore, the Northern Sierra snowpack for this past winter turned out to be 51% lighter than usual. According to the Los Angeles Times, the state is nearly out of water. Australia has been in the midst of an unremitting dry spell since 2004, as 41% of the country's agriculture suffers the worst drought in the 117 years of record-keeping. Rivers have stopped flowing, lakes are being eradicated by toxicity, and farmers have left their land. Argentina’s worst drought in half a century has turned that country's landscapes to dust. Food production is set to go down a minimum of 50 percent or greater. Africa faces food shortages due to lack of rainfall. Half the agricultural soil has lost nutrients necessary to grow plant. The Middle East and Central Asia, to boot, are suffering from contemporary nadir droughts and food grain production is at the lowest levels in decades. A major shortage of planting seed for the 2010 crop is expected. Stocks of foodstuff are dangerously low worldwide.

The riots that erupted in Mexico early in 2007 in response to rising corn prices were but a harbinger of what’s to come. Given the “dust bowl” droughts (and other conditions in Third World and developing economies) now gripping countries that make up almost two thirds of the world's breadbasket - the U.S., many countries in South America, Australia, China and parts of Canada - the price of food staples like wheat, rice, corn etc., will again rise to riot-causing levels in the coming months. And this is happening just when tens of millions of people are being laid off and billions of people in the developing world are sure to see their already well below poverty-level incomes drop further or cease to exist altogether due to the worldwide ongoing economic collapse and lack of investment in developing countries. “The whole global picture is flagging up signals that we’re moving out of a period of abundant food supply into a period in which food is going to be in much shorter supply.” When you combine no economic growth with rising food prices you have a perfect recipe for unrelenting massive social turmoil. Food prices will soar and in countries with food deficits, millions will be facing starvation. Food riots and social unrest seen in 2008 are going to seem like a walk in the park compared to what might be in store for 2009 and beyond if these epic droughts and worsening economic conditions continue. And if we get hit by a particularly bad harvest or if a severe El Nino strikes, food supplies could get totally out of control in many countries. If this happens then almost any city, and almost any countryside, could be aflame with strikes, riots and civil disobedience.

HEALTH THREATS -
Latest bird flu news from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.
Global Bird Flu Breaking News - updated every 10 minutes.
HealthMap - Global disease alert map.

The disaster death toll in 2008 WAS ONE OF THE HIGHEST IN DECADES. Cyclone Nargis and the Sichuan earthquake made last year one of the worst for disasters since 1970 - both in terms of lives lost and economic damage . Some 240,500 people lost their lives in natural and man-made disaster in 2008. Most died in Asia, where cyclone Nargis killed 138,000 people when it hit Myanmar last May. An earthquake in China's Sichuan province the same month claimed 70,000 lives, according to the report. More people died only in 1970 and 1976, with a tropical storm in the Bay of Bengal and a quake in China being the main killers in those two years respectively. The economic damage caused by disasters last year was put at $269 billion, with the earthquake in Sichuan accounting for almost half of this. Insured losses amounted to $52.5 billion, more than three-quarters of which occurred in the United States.

Tennessee - dozens of songbirds are dying across the state in a salmonella outbreak and officials are investigating whether it's related to a national peanut recall. They've found dead birds - especially goldfinches, purple finches and pine siskins - in seven East Tennessee counties and found as many as 30 dead birds in one group. Experts say that birds normally carry some salmonella bacteria in their digestive tracks, and periods of stress such as cold weather or food shortages can weaken their systems. Two bird food companies have recently recalled suet and seed blends containing peanuts that could have been contaminated with salmonella.

------------------------------------------

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 -

A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -
St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time --
a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic.
Adrienne Cook

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/16/09 -
5.0 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.3 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.3 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.1 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
6.3 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.1 VOLCANO ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.0 TONGA
5.9 PACIFIC-ANTARCTIC RIDGE

MYSTERY BOOMS / SKYQUAKES-
NEW YORK - 3/16/09 - Staten Island residents are trying to figure out what caused a loud boom that was heard in at least six neighborhoods. The explosion-like blast rattled windows of homes at about 7:55 p.m. Monday. It could be heard for miles. Police and firefighters responded to numerous calls to 911, but the loud noise remained a mystery on Tuesday. Police say they found no explosion anywhere in the borough and Con Edison reported no outages or transformer explosions. Last week, witnesses reported big booms of a different sort. A brilliant yellow streak was seen in the skies north of the city, in Westchester and Rockland counties. Some residents believed it was a meteorite fireball. It was just before 8 p.m. on Monday and again six minutes later. Suddenly, a powerful boom, or some say a pair of booms, reverberated through about half a dozen Staten Island neighborhoods, rattling windows, shaking buildings and sending people running into the streets. “Not a normal sound. It was heavy and low.” Some saw a flash.

TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
HAWAII - 3/13/09 - Waves rolled onto Kamehameha Highway in east Oahu - Big waves on Oahu's eastside RARELY reach high surf advisory levels especially during this time of the year. Some residents and drivers were caught off-guard when waves came crashing down along Kamehameha Highway. Although the waves are down on Oahu's eastside, a sign is still up warning drivers to be cautious. Along Kamehameha Highway rocks and debris show how far the waves rolled in during Friday's high surf. "It was so powerful that it could move those rocks especially the loose impediments all over the highways so it was pretty messy." "Roaring, and when we were up in our house we could feel our house vibrating. Kind of scary, because actually no one was out here for the first couple hours when it was really bad, there was no police, no civil defense so it was kind of scary." Surf along east-facing shores reached 15 feet and dropped 6-to-12 feet by late afternoon and traffic continued to flow smoothly in both directions.
Dangerous waves kill man, hinder search for Kauai surfer - 3/14/09 - High surf created dangerous conditions for surfers and boaters Saturday. A man in his 60s fell overboard from a boat in Maunalua Bay and apparently drowned Saturday morning. Off Magic Island, firefighters rescued eight people in an overturned canoe. On Kauai, searchers were not able to recover the body of a 35-year-old surfer missing since Friday afternoon.

UNITED KINGDOM - A surfer was hailed a hero Sunday after saving a dog walker swept into the sea by a FREAK WAVE.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone KEN was 1470 nmi ENE of Auckland, New Zealand.

AUSTRALIA - A tropical low brewing over the Coral Sea is tracking south-west towards Queensland's north coast and could strengthen into a cyclone before the weekend. The storm would be named cyclone Ilsa should it rapidly intensify. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a tropical cyclone outlook for the northern region yesterday afternoon, as the tropical low over the Solomon Islands moved towards the northern coastline. There was a 20 per cent chance the weak low currently located south-west of Rennell Island in the Solomons would develop into a tropical cyclone. "Environmental conditions may gradually become more favourable for development by Thursday, however the probability of it becoming a tropical cyclone in the next three days is low. It is still unclear if it will impact the mainland at all." Although there was no immediate threat to the far north coastline, by Friday, the tropical low will be 600 nautical miles due east of Cairns. Ironically, the weather system could create drier conditions in north Queensland at the weekend by drawing in all available moisture in the surrounding atmosphere as it moves towards the coast.
Cyclone Hamish was part of a triple blow to the Great Barrier Reef and scientists and eco-tourism operators are yet to fully estimate the damage to Australia's biggest tourist attraction. Heavy rains up north, increasing sea temperatures and then the cyclonic conditions were feared to have done irreparable damage to the reef, particularly in far north and north Queensland. A summer of extreme weather brought a triple whammy of pressures to the reef. “Historically the reef has been resilient to events like this, but it is RARE, POSSIBLY UNPRECEDENTED TO HAVE SUCH EVENTS IN SUCH A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME."

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
FLORIDA - SUPERFOG - It's not just smoke and fog. It's superfog, and it's deadly. More than a year after a fatal pileup on Interstate4, experts said they finally have a word to describe the RARE meteorological phenomenon that reduced visibility on the highway to near blindness. Superfog - a killer combination of thick smoke and dense fog that forms under certain conditions - was a factor behind the horrific 70-vehicle smashup in Polk County that killed five people and injured 38 others in January 2008. Meteorologists from the National Weather Service in Melbourne and officials with the Florida Division of Forestry will meet today in Tallahassee to develop a plan on how to share smoke information with forecasters in order to predict superfog and warn motorists of its deadly consequences. It forms overnight, when humidity is at its highest, as dense smoke captures air moisture and quickly condenses into a ground-level cloud that flows across the landscape, blinding everything in its path. The UNUSUAL WEATHER ANOMALY is now the subject of intense study because of its threat to motorists, especially in Florida, given the state's frequent controlled burns, high humidity and heavily traveled roadways through swaths of wildlands. Eight accidents, including the 2008 pileup, involving superfog conditions on major Florida highways have killed 18 motorists, injured 81 others and wrecked about 110 vehicles since 1996. Developing a plan is critical as wildfires keep burning in Central Florida during this dry spell. Satellites can detect superfog, but only during the day. At night, fog is invisible on satellite and radar images. Infrared images from satellites can detect fog but do not distinguish between regular and superfog. Fire officials do not like to use the word superfog to describe the weather phenomenon. "There's no question that smoke combining with fog can increase the density of fog, but the term implies smoke. Dense fog can happen on its own. We tend to prefer the term 'whiteout.' Warning motorists about superfog is difficult because it develops so quickly and disappears as rapidly as it forms. "You'll be out on the roadway, near a reported fire, and there's nothing going on. So you leave, and then minutes later, the smoke and fog just roll in. It's that fast. Visibility is cut to zero, and now you have a possible dangerous situation."

------------------------------------------

Monday, March 16, 2009 -

An Irishman can be worried by the consciousness that there is nothing to worry about.
Austin O'Malley

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/15/09 -
5.1 TONGA
5.3 KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND
5.1 CORDOBA, ARGENTINA
5.0 SOUTHERN PERU
5.4 GALAPAGOS ISLANDS REGION
5.2 WEST CHILE RISE

VOLCANOES -
INDONESIA - Mt. Semeru has been spewing lava and volcanic ash. The alert status has been raised from third to second highest level. The Indonesia Red Cross began preparing around 400 volunteers Friday in anticipation of the possible eruption of the nearby Mount Semeru. The volunteers were distributed to the four districts of Poncokusumo, Ampelgading, Dampit and Tirtoyudo, the areas nearest to the volcano, the highest in Java. The four districts, located on the northern, western and southern slopes of the volcano, are considered the most vulnerable if an eruption takes place. The volunteers were tasked with establishing areas for possible evacuation spots for survivors. "We have also prepared military tents that we can use as refugee tents in the event of a worst-case scenario." Hot lava is expected to pass through Pronojiwo in Lumajang regency in the event of an eruption.

ALASKA - Mount Redoubt Volcano has brief period of intense activity - Alaska's Mount Redoubt rumbled again Sunday and geologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory increased the official alert level to orange. Alaska's Mount Redoubt has become much more active with a low level tremor taking place for several hours on Sunday afternoon, along with the volcano spewing steam and ash. An observation plane flight over Mount Redoubt by the Alaska Volcano Observatory reported a steam and ash plume rising to about 15000 feet above sea level. That plume created a minor ash fall on the upper south side of the mountain. Redoubt then returned to only spewing steam for a few hours. The activity began at about 1 p.m. Sunday and continued for about four hours. Since then there have only been a series of minor earthquakes. Experts don't expect a major eruption any time soon, based on conditions now. But the forecast could change quickly if the volcano becomes more active. Mount Redoubt is about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage.

TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
INDIA - 3/13/09 - Giant waves on the beaches at Bekal Fort and Maravanthe brought back memories of the treacherous tsunami that hit the Indian coast a few years ago. Fishermen were apprehensive about venturing out to sea for fishing following the occurrence of massive waves on Friday. More than a half kilometre of the beach came under the sea water. Five makeshift boat sheds, fishing nets, and a small bridge in Pallikere were washed away by the giant waves. No causalities have been reported.

TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

'Frozen in fear over climate change' - Scientists say they are haunted by the failure to convey to the world just HOW CLOSE EARTH IS TO CLIMATE CATASTROPHE. Top researchers who gathered in Copenhagen for a climate change conference said they were worried that people could not psychologically deal with the enormity of the problem and were reverting to doing nothing. "At first, I thought that we could convince people. But there is a terrible inertia. I fear that society is not up to the challenge of a crisis like this. Today, as a human being I am pessimistic.'' "Perhaps society has realised the seriousness, but it certainly hasn't realised the urgency. But even if you are pessimistic - and sometimes I am - it does not help. What are you going to do? Chop off your hands and give up? That's not a solution either." But even if it is urgent to let the world know just how bad it could be, there is also a danger of frightening people into inaction. "As a scientist, I deal with climate change on a time scale of hundreds of thousands of years, and even I have a hard time dealing with it. The risk is that when science pumps out more and more evidence that we are facing dangerous tipping points'' - triggers that would make climate change irreversible - "that you put your head in the sand and move from denial to despair." Hanging over the conference proceedings like an invisible cloud were the apocalyptic predictions of British scientist James Lovelock. Lovelock commands respect because he understood decades before his peers that Earth behaves as a single, self-regulating system composed of physical, chemical and biological components, a concept he dubbed the Gaia principle. In his just-released book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, he basically says we have already passed a point of no return, and that it is now impossible "to save the planet as we know it.'' "Efforts to stabilise carbon dioxide and temperature are no better than planetary alternative medicine.'' More than a dozen scientists interviewed could only say that they hoped Lovelock was wrong. None could say - based on the science - that they knew he was wrong.

JAPAN - the sound of waves breaking on the island of Hokkaido "may sound nice, but that means the earth is in trouble." Ice flows down each winter from the Arctic. It forms a thick layer along the shore and gives visitors a rare opportunity to walk atop Arctic ice. But the ice is disappearing, melting in Japan's warmer waters and temperatures, and replaced by the sound of the crashing waves of warmer water. The ice cutter that takes tourists into the heart of the Arctic ice drift takes longer to get there every year. "The air is warmer and temperatures are up. This is global warming." Locals hope to turn back time by dialing back their thermometers. A hotel owner organized nearly every single business in the area to turn down the heaters by two degrees. The Shiretoko Grand Hotel gives guests hot water bottles filled with naturally hot spring water instead to stay warm under the sheets. Local businesses also save their cooking oil which will run city buses in the summer. "Small steps, but our scientists say we saved the equivalent of 21 tennis courts of ice last year." While admirable, leading scientists say that may do little to stop the Arctic ice retreat. "To the best of my knowledge and judgment, there is very little that we can do," says Columbia University's Peter Schlosser of the Earth Institute. "We would have to do something extremely dramatic and even then, the question is whether we could turn it around in time before it disappears. The question for me is rather can we re-grow it once it disappears."

------------------------------------------

Sunday, March 15, 2009 -

Beware the Ides of March.
William Shakespeare

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/14/09 -
5.1 OFF E. COAST OF N. ISLAND, N.Z.
5.0 AUCKLAND ISLANDS, N.Z. REGION
5.0 SOUTH OF PANAMA
3/13/09 -
5.4 KEPULAUAN BABAR, INDONESIA
5.0 COSTA RICA

VIET NAM could be hit by a major earthquake even though the country does not lie within an earthquake zone, according to scientists. At an international conference on Thursday on earthquake risk in Viet Nam, scientists warned that Ha Noi, HCM City and southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province were all located in special zones at risk of an earthquake falling between 5-7 degrees on the Richter scale. "If the epicentre is in the centre of the cities, 30-40 per cent of houses and buildings would collapse." The north and south of the country have felt murmurs from earthquakes in China and the East Sea in recent years. Apart from "hot spots", there are around 30 regions throughout the country at risk of an earthquake of 5 degrees on the Richter scale. According to the institute’s research, there were nearly 1,600 earthquakes in Viet Nam ranging from 3 degrees on the Richter scale upwards between 1114 to 2003.

U.S. - New Madrid Earthquake Fault System may be Shutting Down - The New Madrid fault system does not behave as earthquake hazard models assume and may be in the process of shutting down, a new study shows. A team analyzed the fault motion for eight years using global positioning system measurements and found that it is much less than expected given the 500- to 1,000-year repeat cycle for major earthquakes on that fault. The last large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone were magnitude 7-7.5 events in 1811 and 1812. Estimating an accurate earthquake threat for the area, which includes parts of Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky, is crucial for the communities potentially affected. "Our findings suggest the steady-state model of quasi-cyclical earthquakes that works well for faults at the boundaries of tectonic plates, such as the San Andreas fault, does not apply to the New Madrid fault. At plate boundaries, faults move at a rate that is consistent with the rate of earthquakes so that past events are a reliable guide to the future. In continents, this does not work. The past is not necessarily a key to the future, which makes estimating earthquake hazard particularly difficult." The team determined that the ground surrounding the fault system is moving at a rate of less than 0.2 millimeters per year and there is likely no motion. "The slower the ground moves, the longer it takes until the next earthquake, and if it stops moving, the fault could be shutting down. We can't tell whether the recent cluster of big earthquakes in the New Madrid is coming to an end. But the longer the GPS data keep showing no motion, the more likely it seems." In the Midwest there are other faults that show no activity today but have evidence of earthquakes occurring within the past 10,000 to 1 million years. "If other faults in the central and eastern U.S. have been active recently, geologically speaking, they could potentially be activated again in the future. We need to develop a new paradigm for how earthquakes happen at faults that are inside continents." One possibility is that earthquakes in these areas occur in clusters and then migrate to a nearby fault. "There is the possibility that seismicity migrates with time as earthquakes trigger earthquakes on nearby faults. Geologists studying the seismic history of faults have found that there have been earthquakes on several faults in the central and eastern U.S. and that they seem to produce bursts of earthquakes and then turn off."

MYSTERY BOOMS / SKYQUAKES -
IDAHO - March 2009 - Mysterious 'skyquakes' return to valley, reported across U.S. - Roughly a year after a series of bizarre rumbling was reported across the Magic Valley, similar incidents are being reported again in south-central Idaho and northern Nevada. On March 3, the Southern Idaho Regional Communications Center heard from people from Buhl to Kimberly and Jerome who reported a loud boom and rumbling that evening. One off-duty dispatcher felt it in Twin Falls, and one supervisor said he felt it at his own home in Kimberly. "I thought (at first) it was my neighbors moving heavy equipment." Farther south, residents of Spring Creek, Lamoille and Elko, Nev., last week reported periodic rumbling and occasional shaking over several days, all at varying times of day. Mining companies in the area said that they haven't done anything unusual that would cause the rumbles and suggested that they may be sonic booms from military aircraft. But the rumblings heard on and off for the past few years last just a few seconds too long and are too continuous to be sonic booms. Mountain Home Air Force Base officials don't believe they're the cause. The closest jet at the time was 23 or 24 miles away from Twin Falls and another base doesn't report any training at the time. But geologists still said that sonic booms may be the best explanation. No earthquakes were recorded anywhere close enough to southern Idaho to have caused the noise at the time. The Idaho Geological Survey wondered about extremely tiny earthquakes, noting that scientists aren't able to record so called "micro-earthquakes." But they still don't believe an earthquake was the culprit, and noted the reports were too widespread to be something local, such as large quarry blasts. "What it actually is, is anyone's guess."
Scientists gave similar responses last March, when odd rumblings happened regularly at 11:23 p.m. for several days. But the military then also denied any involvement.
Often called "skyquakes," the unexplained booms have become a regular occurrence worldwide in recent years, often coming in waves over the same area, according to reports on Web sites such as www.abovetopsecret.com, that track the phenomenon. Southern California news outlets reported a strong skyquake that rattled windows across the Los Angeles-Orange County area at 9:20 p.m. on March 3 just hours after the one felt in the Magic Valley. The following day, March 4, another skyquake was felt over California's Central Coast region. Seismic stations around Monterey Bay, Calif., recorded a compression wave at 9:15 a.m., but the wave lacked the up-and-down shear that usually characterizes an earthquake. And on March 7 residents of Westchester County, NY, reported being shaken from their sleep by a pre-dawn skyquake that rattled the Hudson River Valley area just north of New York City. While widely scattered, the latest string of skyquakes all resulted in the same round of denials from U.S. Geological Survey officials (no earthquakes), civil officials (no construction blasting or other known explosions) and military and civilian air traffic controllers (no exercises or high-speed flights).

VOLCANOES -
COLUMBIA - authorities ordered inhabitants to evacuate the area around the Galeras volcano near the Ecuadorian border. It erupted and showered ash over several villages in the southern province of Nariño without taking any victims or causing material damage. The peak located some 700 kilometers (435 miles) southwest of Bogota was on orange alert since Thursday, and on Saturday the category was raised to red alert, signifying imminent eruption or eruption in progress, after the phenomenon registered at 3:55 p.m. local time (2055 GMT) Friday. “An eruption of an explosive nature was registered” and immediately inhabitants of the areas at risk were requested to evacuate their homes and go to the emergency shelters set up in three municipalities of the region. Emergency services officials recommended “people living in the high-threat area of the Galeras volcano to obey the evacuation order issued by the mayors of Pasto, Nariño and La Florida” and “to pay attention to official communiques” on how the situation is evolving. Up to now only 76 of the almost 8,000 people at risk have obeyed the evacuation order.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - a mantle plume - an upwelling of intense heat from near the core of the Earth - may be bubbling to life beneath Nyiragongo, an active African volcano, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “This is the most fluid lava anyone has seen in the world. It’s unlike anything coming out of any other volcano. We believe were seeing the beginning of a plume that is pushing up the entire area and contributing to volcanism and earthquakes." The lava, which resides in the world’s largest lava lake - more than 600 feet wide inside the summit of Nyiragongo - has isotopic compositions of neodymium and strontium which are identical to ancient asteroids. "This suggests that the lava is coming from a place deep inside the Earth where the source of molten rock is in its pristine condition. Because the Earth’s crust is undergoing constant change via tectonic motion, weathering, and resurfacing, its chemical composition has been dramatically altered over its 4-billion-year lifespan, but the Nyiragongo magma source in the deep mantle has not." That magma source is thought to retain some of the solar system's original make-up of elements, and this is what Basu and his colleagues believe they have detected in Nyiragongo’s lava lake. Scientists believe mantle plumes can last hundreds of millions of years, and that their heat can create phenomena such as Yellowstone National Park or the string of Hawaiian Islands. Nyiragongo’s frequent eruptions may be the birthing pains of a similar plume and the possible beginning of new large-scale geological formations in the region. Other well known features of the region also point toward the idea of a growing plume. Nyiragongo last erupted in 2002, sending its super-fluid lava down its slopes at more than 60 miles per hour toward the nearby town of Goma, destroying 4,500 buildings and leaving 120,000 homeless.

A study found that tiny shifts that are making our days longer by some milliseconds, may be due to electrical forces present deep under the Earth. According to a report in National Geographic News, it has long been known that natural phenomena on Earth's surface, such as tides and winds, affect its rotation speed. Now scientists are investigating how events in a mineral layer at the core-mantle boundary, 1,615 miles (2,600 kilometers) deep, similarly affect the planets spin. The length of a day is changing due to the interaction between the mantle and the core in the very deep Earth. This is basically because the bottom of the mantle has very high electrical conductivity. What this means is that the magnetic field in the core can grab onto, or lock into, the lowermost mantle. And so, one of the influences that this can have is in altering the length of day, or the rotation rate of the Earth, depending on when and where the core is grabbing onto the mantle. This interaction accounts for several milliseconds of increase in day length over the past 150 years. Such miniscule time periods might seem negligible, but they do matter.

TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.

Global hurricane activity has decreased to THE LOWEST LEVEL IN 30 YEARS. Both Northern Hemisphere and overall Global hurricane activity has continued to sink to levels not seen since the 1970s. Even more astounding, when the Southern Hemisphere hurricane data is analyzed to create a global value, we see that Global Hurricane Energy has sunk to 30-year lows, at the least. Since hurricane intensity and detection data is problematic as one goes back in time, when reporting and observing practices were different than today, it is possible that we underestimated global hurricane energy during the 1970s. 24-month running sums of global ACE or hurricane energy have plummeted to levels not seen in 30 years. Why use 24-month running sums instead of simply yearly values? Since a primary driver of the Earth’s climate from year to year is the El Nino Southern Oscillation acts on time scales on the order of 2-7 years, and the fact that the bulk of the Southern Hemisphere hurricane season occurs from October - March, a reasonable interpretation of global hurricane activity requires a better metric than simply calendar year totals. During the past 6 months, extending back to October of 2008 when the Southern Hemisphere tropical season was gearing up, global ACE had crashed due to two consecutive years of well-below average Northern Hemisphere hurricane activity. The North Atlantic was above normal in 2008 (in terms of ACE), but the North Atlantic only represents a 1/10 to 1/8 of global hurricane energy output on average. During the past 2 years +, the Earth’s climate has cooled under the effects of a dramatic La Nina episode. La Nina falls tend to favor very active seasons in the Atlantic (word of warning for 2009). Through March 12, 2009, the Southern Hemisphere ACE is about half of what’s expected in a normal year, with a multitude of very weak, short-lived hurricanes. All of these numbers tell a very simple story: just as there are active periods of hurricane activity around the globe, there are inactive periods, and we are currently experiencing one of the most impressive inactive periods, now for almost 3 years. The perceptible (and perhaps measurable) impact of global warming on hurricanes in today’s climate is arguably a pittance compared to the reorganization and modulation of hurricane formation locations and preferred tracks/intensification corridors dominated by ENSO (and other natural climate factors). Moreover, our understanding of the complicated role of hurricanes with climate is nebulous to be charitable. (graphs & charts)

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
THAILAND - Weather men say lie low as FREAK storms sweep by - The Meteorological Department yesterday warned of summer thundershowers over upper Thailand until today due to an intense high-pressure system from China. It advised remaining indoors and avoiding big trees, billboards, unsecured buildings and electrical conductors. Wind and waves in the Gulf are rising, and ships are advised to proceed with caution and small boats to keep inshore. Summer thunderstorm yesterday afternoon damaged 57 houses in Kanchanaburi's Muang district and the gusts were so mighty that it blew a water tank on a tap water tower onto a nearby tamarind tree top. Local officials were yesterday dispatched to assist residents on two villages in Mukdahan's Dong Luang district where 44 homes were damaged by summer thunderstorm. In Ubon Ratchathani, thunderstorms ravaged seven villages in Khemarat district on Friday night, causing damage to 14 houses worth Bt1 million. Falling trees damaged electricity poles causing blackouts until 10am yesterday. The weather bureau warned of thunderstorms in the lower Northeast until next week. In Surin's Prasat district thunderstorms damaged 30 homes on Friday night, blowing tin roofs into fields 500 metres away and bringing down fruit trees. Kalasin province has set up a 24-hour centre to tackle thunderstorms and alert residents in all its 18 districts. The Governor paradoxically reported a drought that has half-emptied 18 medium-sized reservoirs and Lampao Dam, hitting 15,000 rai of farmland.

------------------------------------------

Friday, March 13, 2009 -

No update yesterday.

A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -
"Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in the tempestuous seasons
they only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean will be flat."
John Maynard Keynes

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/12/09 -
5.1 NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
6.1 SOUTH OF PANAMA
5.3 TONGA
5.1 SOLOMON ISLANDS
5.5 SOUTH OF AFRICA
5.0 PHILIPPINE ISLANDS REGION
5.1 SICHUAN-GANSU BORDER REG, CHINA
5.0 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 PUERTO RICO REGION (along with a swarm of moderate quakes)
3/11/09 -
5.0 JAVA, INDONESIA
5.0 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.9 COSTA RICA
5.7 COSTA RICA
5.6 SAN JUAN, ARGENTINA
5.1 SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS

OREGON - A swarm of small earthquakes -- more than 280 of them since the first of the year -- is tickling an area near eastern Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The quakes are too small to disturb the radioactive material stored at Hanford or to interfere with cleanup operations there. The plant processed plutonium for nuclear weapons during World War II and the Cold War. The quakes have caused some minor problems at the LIGO laboratory at Hanford, however, knocking sensitive equipment off-line for a few minutes at a time. The sprawling facility -- LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory -- was built to measure ripples in the fabric of space and time. Cosmic gravitational waves are produced by such things as the collision of black holes or shockwaves from supernova explosions. The quakes are centered near Wooded Island on the Columbia River, about eight miles north of Richland. The largest was magnitude 2.9 and most were smaller than 1.0. Because they are small and occurring relatively close to the surface, less than two miles deep, researchers believe the quakes are happening within the Columbia River basalt layers rather than a deeper and more dangerous fault zone. As a result, a large earthquake is considered unlikely. Earthquake swarms were reported in the same area in 1970, 1975 and 1988 and are not unusual in eastern Washington and eastern Oregon. Meanwhile, a much larger earthquake was detected west of Grants Pass on Feb. 26. It measured 4.1 and surprised scientists because a deep, strong quake was not expected in that area. "All in all it's been an interesting week for earthquakes."

VOLCANOES -
NEW ZEALAND - There has been an enormous eruption in an underwater volcano about 300 kilometres from the Bay of Plenty. Using underwater mapping devices, scientists have found evidence of the eruption by the Rumble III Volcano near the Kermadecs. Rumble III, which is part of the 250-kilometre South Kermadec Ridge, rises 2300 metres from the sea floor. Until 2007, its summit was within about 200m of the sea surface. However, scientists on a research ship that has just spent two weeks investigating underwater volcanoes have found a "startling change" in the shape of the summit, which has reduced in height by about 100m. The volcano has endured a "fairly catastrophic" eruption. A map made in 2007 showed an 800m-wide crater near the top, but the new map now shows the crater had been filled and the nearby summit cone had shrunk. "This suggests there has been a major eruption that collapsed the summit cone and filled the adjacent crater." The eruption is consistent with the fact that a number of the 90 submarine volcanoes along the Kermadec Arc are highly active. Some of the volcanoes along the 2000 kilometre underwater chain, which runs northeast of New Zealand between the Bay of Plenty and Tonga, are as big as Mt Ruapehu. (map)

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone JONI was 1506 nmi ENE of Hamilton, New Zealand.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

U.S. - The dry weather is SETTING RECORDS ACROSS THE COUNTRY. Meteorologists say they haven't seen it this dry in North America in the first two months of a year SINCE THE 1800's. Farmers across the country are bracing for a tough crop season and a big water bill, and firefighters are already seeing a big increase in the number of wildfires across the country.
OREGON - It hasn't been this dry in Southern Oregon in nearly a decade. Now farmers and firefighters in the region are bracing for tough times.
OKLAHOMA - So far this year, Oklahoma has averaged only 1.24 inches of rain. The worst drought is in neighboring Texas, where less than an inch has fallen so far. That means more bad news for Oklahoma. Spring thunderstorms in the state typically come from the Gulf of Mexico via Texas. If Texas remains dry, then the Gulf air will lose moisture before reaching Oklahoma. Cotton and wheat crops are just two of the state's large cash crops that will likely suffer under the extremely dry conditions.
FLORIDA - With nearly desert-like conditions across South Florida, fire danger values are at extremely high levels. Florida is even drier this year than in 1989, when 600,000 acres of land burned. "We've had THE DRIEST WINTER ON RECORD in many parts of South Florida. West Palm Beach, for example, both January and February set the RECORD-LOW rainfall." With La Nina expected to continue through May, drier than normal conditions are likely to persist. Adding insult to injury, the unusually cold winter has also contributed to an increased fire danger.
COLORADO - The northern half of Colorado's Front Range is officially in a moderate drought. Much of the Front Range has received less than two inches of water in the past five months.
NEVADA - Recent heavy snowfall in the Sierra wasn't enough to dig western Nevada out of a drought.
LOUISIANA - Three wildfires burning in south Louisiana since the weekend are evidence that portion of the state is in a drought.
ALABAMA - Below-average rainfall coupled with already-low groundwater levels have brought drought conditions back to Alabama over the last month.

International scientists say the worst-case scenarios on climate change envisaged just two years ago are ALREADY BEING REALISED. There is a increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climate shifts. Even modest temperature rises will affect millions of people, particularly in the developing world. In the Amazon rainforest there will be a 75% loss of tree cover if the world warms by three degrees for a century. The scientists hope that their conclusions will remove any excuses from the political process. "We've seen lots more data, we can see where we are, no new surprises, we have a problem." If the world was to warm by 5C over the next century, "you'd see hundreds of millions people, probably billions of people who would have to move and we know that would cause conflict, so we would see a very extended period of conflict around the world, decades or centuries as hundreds of millions of people move. So I think it's very important that we understand the magnitude of the risk we are running." Scientists say most tools needed to cut carbon dioxide emissions already exist. "Business as usual is dead - green growth is the answer to both our climate and economic problems."

------------------------------------------

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 -

“Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature.
A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.”
Joseph Addison

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/10/09 -
5.3 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.6 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.6 OFF COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA
5.2 SOUTH OF TONGA
5.0 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
5.1 NEAR N COAST OF NEW GUINEA, PNG.
5.0 CHIAPAS, MEXICO
3/9/09 -
5.2 TONGA
5.1 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.4 OFFSHORE GUATEMALA
3/8/09 -
None 5.0 or higher.
3/7/09 -
5.5 FLORES REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 TIMOR REGION
5.4 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
3/6/09 -
5.2 SOLOMON ISLANDS
6.5 NORTH OF SVALBARD
5.0 TONGA
5.6 TONGA

AUSTRALIA - Seismologists are at a loss to explain the flurry of earthquakes that have hit a small Wheatbelt town. Beacon, 320km north-west of Perth, has had roughly 100 earthquakes in the last month. The largest, which registered nearly five on the Richter Scale came within 24 hours of earthquakes in Melbourne and off the coast near Broome on Friday. The earthquake clusters, known as swarms, were not unusual for the wheatbelt area but what was UNUSUAL was the migration of the swarms around the wheatbelt. Similar patterns were noted in Koorda in 2003 to 2005 and Burrakin between 2000 and 2002. "These ones like the Beacon case where you seem to get several moderate earthquakes and then lots and lots of smaller quakes, it is a bit unusual. It's called a swarm because it doesn't follow the typical foreshock, minishock, aftershock pattern or at least it doesn't seem to. That's this migrating swarm, I'm not sure I've ever heard of that before. For that area it would seem that this behaviour is not atypical." Seismologists were uncertain if the swarms were related to larger earthquake events such as the wheatbelt's Meckering earthquake in 1968, which registered 6.8 on the Richter scale. The seismic activity could be relieving stresses and avoiding larger earthquakes or it could result in a big rupture. "They seem to die out gradually, we don't really know that much of what to expect, I mean Burrakin went on for a couple of years, Koorda sort of gradually started up and faded out. It could continue for a while."
Korumburra earthquake BIGGEST FOR 36 YEARS - Scientists have moved to calm nerves after the biggest earthquake to rattle Melbourne in 36 years. Friday night's rumble measured 4.6 on the Richter scale.

NORWAY - A major earthquake which measured 6.5 on the Richter scale hit off the coast of the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard on Friday. This is THE STRONGEST QUAKE EVER REGISTERED IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD. There are no reports of any damage. If a quake of this strength had hit the mainland, the damage would have been considerable, experts say. Friday's quake comes just one year after the last record tremor in the region. On February 21st last year a quake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale was registered, also off the coast of Svalbard.

MYSTERY BOOMS -
NEW YORK - 3/7/09 - There were reports of a big "boom" and a brilliant yellow streak in the skies north of New York City. There was no seismic activity in the region. The sound early Saturday has been likened to a window-rattling explosion. Police got a flurry of reports from people in Scarsdale, Mount Vernon, Yonkers, Tuckahoe, Eastchester and Bronxville. An witness to the spectacle early Saturday in Westchester County apparently saw a meteorite fireball. A collector is offering $10,000 for a piece of the meteorite. Another "boom" was reported early Monday in neighboring Rockland County.
A second loud boom - 3/9/09 - may have rattled windows in parts of Rockland County Monday - and its origin remains as mysterious as the explosive noise that blew through southern Westchester County over the weekend. "It was about 5:15 a.m., and it woke up the whole house. The house was shaking. It sounded like someone had flown an F-16 over the house." An earlier unexplained "boom" shook homes in parts of southern Westchester early Saturday. That noise, and the one that reportedly woke up parts of Rockland yesterday, was unlikely to be an earthquake, weather pattern, falling space debris or a civilian aircraft, officials from local, state and federal agencies said. The likelihood of the boom being from a meteorite would be "very rare." "When people say bigger, they usually mean brighter. It is possible that something in the atmosphere can do that, but it is very rare. But seeing it moving in a downward arc would be an optical illusion. You would not be able to see that." There also have been no confirmed reports of seismic activity over the weekend.

CALIFORNIA - 3/4/09 - had a similar boom mystery a few days earlier. The search for the cause of the sonic boom Central Coast residents felt Wednesday morning may be a bust. A Federal Aviation Administration official said the search for the source of the mysterious morning rattling has turned up nothing. "We reviewed all the radar data for flights in the airspace in Northern California around the time that people reported this boom. There were several military aircraft operating but they were slow. None of these aircraft were going supersonic." The Orange County Register reported a sonic boom 12 hours before what was heard on the Central Coast on Wednesday. The mystery has spurred its share of conspiracy theories. On the Sentinel Web site, readers comments suggested the boom was E.T.'s return, an intercontinental missile fired by North Korea, a chemtrail weather modification program or test runs of new, secret U.S. Navy jets. Orange County residents had similar theories after thousands of doors and windows across the county rattled and vibrated. Some suggested an asteroid was the source of the shaking. The asteroid passed by Monday night. A U.S. Geological Survey spokesperson said the shaking was not caused by an earthquake, though several people called 911 to report a possible rattler after the boom.

VOLCANOES -
JAPAN - One of Japan's most active volcanoes has erupted, spewing out lava and debris as far as 2kms away. The Sakurajima volcano, near the southern city of Kagoshima, belched lava seven times from 5.22am. "It's possible that the volcano will step up activity, and we have issued a warning to residents living nearby." The volcano, about 950km southwest of Tokyo, continued to spout fumes, although they were down from an earlier high of 1,200m. The volcano last erupted in February, and the agency earlier this month boosted the alert level by a notch.

INDONESIA - The highest mountain on Java Island Mt. Semeru did not show significant volcanic activities on Monday, but residents were still urged to stay away from around 4 km from its crater to make sure of their safety in case of deteriorating situation. The volcano erupted Friday, belching smoke and ash into the sky and coating the nearby town of Lumajang in fine black ash. "We could not see material spewing from the crater now because of it's covered by fog." The mountain produced a huge explosion Friday, followed by 873 minor quakes, 34 eruptions and 18 tremors.

HAWAII - Volcanic smog shutting down some Hawaii farmers. The Big Island has long dealt with vog, but levels increased dramatically ever since Kilauea started a new eruption at Halemaumau in March last year. Sulfur dioxide has wiped out multiple small farms and nurseries in the largely rural district of Kau next to Kilauea volcano. At fault are the noxious fumes that have been pouring out of the Kilauea volcano in UNPRECEDENTED VOLUMES since last spring.

ALASKA - Okmok Volcano warning level raised to yellow on the 2nd - The Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the warning level for Okmok to yellow, or advisory, last Monday after a series of seismic bursts that lasted for six hours. The tremors repeated again Wednesday but have since subsided. "Signals like this sometimes precede eruptions on the scale of hours to days, sometimes weeks or longer. And then sometimes the volcano just goes back to sleep. So you have to be cautious and assume that it may erupt and it could do so quickly, so that's the basis for our treating it with caution and changing the color code. On the other hand it could represent a new physical state of the volcano in which case it could do something different and then go back to sleep." Okmok erupted very suddenly in July but that was unusual. Its current behavior is reminiscent of the tremors between 2003 and 2005. "It kind of turned on, turned off, turned on turned off. And we may be back to that activity now." Mount Cleveland is also marked yellow, but this is typical. It has small eruptions up to half a dozen times per year.
ALASKA - Redoubt alert level cut to 'yellow'. Its current state of unrest could continue for months or years without an eruption, but it's also possible that it could shift back into an eruptive phase.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone 19S was 1125 nmi SE of Diego Garcia.
Cyclone HAMISH was 600 nmi ESE of Townsville, Australia.

AUSTRALIA - there is now only a small chance Cyclone Hamish will hit Queensland's coast.
An incredible stroke of luck appears to have saved the life of a fisherman, rescued after huge swells whipped up by Cyclone Hamish rolled a trawler off central Queensland. Two others are still missing.
Tropical cyclone Hamish was downgraded to a category three as it continues to be torn apart by fierce atmospheric winds. (map)
Severe sand erosion from huge ocean swells caused by tropical cyclone Hamish has decimated beaches up and down the South-East Queensland coast. Beaches as far south as Coolangatta on the Gold Coast remain closed as the super storm cell, which has been downgraded to a category two system, continues to generate damaging winds and ABNORMALLY HIGH tides. "There's no sand at all, there's no beach. At high tide the water is coming in and eroding the beach right up to the tree line and our patrol tower. It is very dirty, there's a lot of logs and debris floating out there. I don't think there's going to be much beach left for the rest of the season." Gale-force winds are continuing to lash the Queensland coastline as storm surges associated with Tropical Cyclone Hamish threaten to flood low-lying properties at Urangan in Hervey Bay. Strong onshore winds have generated tides 20 centimetres above the highest astronomical tide. Waverider buoys have recorded ocean swells up to four metres in waters off Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island, where a cargo ship lost 31 containers filled with 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate this morning.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

Climate scientists warn that world is heading for war of the resources - There is a 50-50 chance of temperature rises reaching dangerous levels over the next century, climate scientists have warned. Even with heavy cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 3 per cent a year from 2015, the chance of preventing the temperature rise from exceeding 2C by 2050 is no more than half. And every decade's delay in reducing emissions will cause temperatures to go up by half a degree. If emissions peak in 2015 but are reduced at a rate of only 1 per cent annually, the temperature rise will be 2.9C. If emissions peak in 2035 the average temperature will rise by 4C above pre-industrial levels. Failure to cut emissions at all could leave temperatures to rise by 7.1C by the end of the century. Scientists fear that temperature rises above 2C would lead to wars over key resources, including water supplies, falls in crop yields in southern Europe and the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. Almost a third of animal and plant species could become extinct. A 2C rise could be delayed but it is extremely unlikely that it can be avoided. “In order to stabilise at a 2C rise we have to make very drastic cuts. But however drastic the emission cuts are, there is going to be a rise in temperatures. We are pretty much going to head towards 2C whatever we do. There are some impacts that are already happening and we are going to be living in a very different world.”

More bad news on climate change is expected as more than 2,000 climate scientists gather in Copenhagen. They will be trying to pull together the latest research on global warming ahead of political negotiations later in the year. The scientists are concerned that the 2007 reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are already out of date.
The global sea level looks set to rise far higher than forecast because of changes in the polar ice-sheets, researchers suggest. 10% of the world's population - about 600 million people - live in low-lying areas. The IPCC estimate had been based largely on the expansion of oceans from higher temperatures, rather than meltwater and the impact of glaciers tumbling into the sea. "The most recent research showed that sea level is rising by 3mm a year since 1993, a rate well above the 20th century average." "Put bluntly, if it's 10cm below the height of the defence, then there's no problem. But if it's 10cm above the defence, then we could be looking at devastation."
"We need to look at what is a 'reasonable worst case' in the lifetime of people alive today," as even rich nations have yet to take such scenarios seriously. "A sea level rise of one or two metres would not just be damaging for China, it would be an absolute catastrophe. And what is catastrophic for China is catastrophic for the world." "The huge response from scientists comes from a sense of urgency, but also a sense of frustration. Most of us have been trained as scientists to not get our hands dirty by talking to politicians. But we now realise that what we are dealing with is so complicated and urgent that we have to help to make sure the results are understood." "A few years ago, those of us who talked about the impact of the ice sheets were seen as extremists. Today it is recognised as the central issue. THE WORLD HAS VERY LITTLE TIME."

SPACE WEATHER-
The first catalogued fragments of shattered satellite Cosmos 2251 are about to reenter Earth's atmosphere. According to US Strategic Command tracking data, reentries will occur on March 12th, 28th and 30th, followed by more in April.

------------------------------------------

Friday, March 6, 2009 -

There will be no updates on Sunday - Tuesday, March 8 - 10.

A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -
“These small things -- nutrition, place, climate, recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness --
are inconceivably more important than everything one has taken to be important so far.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
(I have to admit that the word casuistry looked like a typo to me - but it's not!)

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/5/09 -
5.4 NORTH OF SVALBARD
5.1 NORTH OF SVALBARD
5.8 FIJI REGION
5.1 NEAR SOUTH COAST OF MYANMAR

MYSTERY BOOMS -
CALIFORNIA - 3/4/09 - Mysterious rattling reported in county; earthquake ruled out as the cause. Even though Central Coast residents felt rattled Wednesday morning, the source of the shaking was not under their feet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At 9:15 a.m., USGS sensors detected ground movement, but the signals did not resemble an earthquake. The movement appeared to originate off the Monterey Bay coast. "Our best guess is that it was a sonic boom from a jet off the coast. That's all we can say scientifically." The Air Force reports it did not have jets flying off the coast that morning. After receiving calls about a boom in Southern California, the Federal Aviation Administration said it is searching through flights they monitored Wednesday morning to find the supersonic jet. "We haven't found anything yet that would explain the sonic boom." "The energy travelled across our seismic sensor network at the velocity of a compressional wave in air rather than the velocity of a similar wave through the ground, which is much faster." "I was outside and heard two loud booms. My husband said the house shook quickly, like a truck hit it, not the typical earthquake shaking, much quicker." One man heard four loud booms - two before 10 a.m. and another two around noon. "They made our windows rattle. It was like a blast, it sounded like a dynamite blast almost." Residents in Salinas and Monterey also reported feeling the boom. The ground did move Wednesday morning also. The USGS Web site reported four minor earthquakes in the region. A magnitude 2.0 earthquake hit near Los Altos Hills at 8:40 a.m. Two quakes struck outside Tres Pinos: a 1.3 magnitude at 5:42 a.m. and a 1.6 at 7:52 a.m. The shaking detected at 9:15 a.m. was not posted on their site, because it was not classified as an earthquake. At 11:12 a.m., a 1.7 movement was measured in a quarry near Portola Valley. The USGS attributed that to a probable quarry explosion.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone HAMISH was 171 nmi NNE of Cairns, Australia.

AUSTRALIA - Strong winds and high seas are expected off the north Queensland coast as Category 2 Cyclone Hamish makes its way south.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
AUSTRALIA - Flooding in Western Australia's Pilbara has spawned a potentially deadly mosquito-borne virus authorities warn is particularly dangerous to newcomers to the region.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

DROUGHT is killing off trees in Brazil's fragile Amazon rain forest and depleting the region's carbon reservoirs - an ecological double-whammy with devastating implications. The Amazon's lush vegetation in a typical year absorbs nearly two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, one of the chief culprits causing climate change. Drought also accelerates the depletion of the region's carbon sinks, natural reservoirs that accumulate and store the chemical compound for an indefinite period. Researchers said the total impact of the drought was an additional five billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - more than the combined annual emissions of Europe and Japan. The Amazon accounts for more than half of the world's rainforest, covering an area 25 times the size of the United Kingdom. The findings are especially sobering because climatologists predict the creation of a potentially devastating cycle in which the Amazon's hotter and more intense future dry seasons in turn lead to more greenhouse gas emissions and even more drought.

SPACE WEATHER-
FINLAND - 3/1/09 - A fist-sized meteorite plummeted to Earth somewhere in southern Savo. At least three cameras captured the bright streak of the space-rock making its fiery descent over the weekend. "The meteorite has probably fallen along the border between Kangasniemi and Hankasalm." The landing site got quite a bit of snow over the weekend, which makes finding and retrieving the meteorite quite difficult. The rock shot into Earth's atmosphere at 15.4 metres per second, but it slowed down as it approached the ground. Both the Ursa Astornomical Association and its local affiliate Jyväskylän Sirius are requesting that witnesses submit accounts or pictures of the shooting star. [Site note - This isn't far from the location of the quakes North of Svalbard] (photo)

Moon mystery - Ever since the invention of the telescope, observers around the world have occasionally watched small areas of the moon brighten or "turn fuzzy." Sometimes they even turn reddish. Because the bright patches are ephemeral, lasting only last a few minutes, these events have come to be known as transient lunar phenomena, or TLPs. "About 1,500 of these have been reported." Astronomers already know they're not meteorite impacts. Those produce brighter, briefer flashes as the meteorite hits the surface and vaporizes. But nobody yet knows what TLPs are - or even whether they truly exist. Many astronomers think they're simply optical illusions or figments of observers' tired eyes and overactive imaginations. Scientists have long believed the moon to be a dead world, but if TLPs are real, then some form of geological activity must still be going on. In a project begun last year and expected to continue at least into 2010, two telescopes are photographing the moon every 20 seconds. At each site, the images are fed into computers that can examine them for changes that might signal a TLP. That may sound easy, but it's not. Minor disturbances in Earth's atmosphere can also cause lunar features to brighten, dim, or distort. A statistical analysis of all known TLP reports, searching for patterns, found that in the most reliable reports, the vast majority appeared to have occurred in a handful of lunar locations. Half, in fact, were in a single crater, Aristarchus, while another 20 percent took place in the crater Plato. The areas where TLPs have been most frequently sighted were compared to regions where Apollo space missions observed evidence of a short-lived radioactive gas, radon-222, escaping from the Moon's interior - a clear sign that some type of geological activity was going on. The Apollo instruments spotted several such outbursts - all in areas where TLPs are frequently reported. "The chances of this happening at random are extremely small." Gases including radon might be migrating up from deep inside the moon, making their way to the surface via fractures in the rock. "When we look at the moon, we think of [it] as a dead place. But it may not be dead. It may be having these last gasps."

------------------------------------------

Thursday, March 1, 2009 -

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
Mark Twain

QUAKES -

Largest quakes yesterday -
3/4/09 -
5.2 SIMEULUE, INDONESIA
5.0 BONIN ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.2 ANATAHAN REG, N. MARIANA ISLANDS
5.2 VANUATU

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone HAMISH was 202 nmi NNE of Cairns, Australia.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
AUSTRALIA - 'The great ignored flood of the north-west'. It started flooding in Queensland's north-west on January 1 and eight weeks on it's still under water. Graziers are becoming increasingly frustrated with what they say is a slow response to their situation by the state and federal governments. Tempers are fraying among cattle producers as they near the beginning of a third month in flood. "It's very stressful, we haven't been able to move for eight weeks. We didn't receive a food drop for six weeks."

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

Climate Change - A growing body of evidence, including analyses from military experts in the United States and Europe, supports the estimate that by midcentury, climate change will make vast parts of Africa and Asia uninhabitable. Analysts say it could trigger a migration the size of which the world has never before seen. Some of the big questions remain unanswered: How many people will really move? Where will they go? How will they go? Will they return?
But experts estimate that as many as 250 million people -- a population almost that of the entire United States -- could be on the move by 2050. They will go because temperatures are rising and desertification has set in where rainfall is needed most. They will go because more potent monsoons are making flood-prone areas worse. They will go because of other water events caused by melting glaciers, rising seas and the slow and deadly seepage of saline water into their wells and fields.
The worst migration cases will be nations like the Maldives and small islands in the Pacific. Their inhabitants will go because their homelands will likely sink beneath the rising sea. A minimum of 207 million people in Latin America, Asia and Africa will not have enough water inside a decade. In Asia, an extra 130 million people will be at risk of hunger by the middle of the century. By 2100, crop revenues in Africa will drop 90 percent. And scientists see Bangladesh as ground zero. By the end of the century, more than a quarter of the country will be inundated. About 15 million people in Bangladesh alone could be displaced. That's the equivalent of every person in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The first shifts will start within countries. Scientists see families flocking from rural and coastal areas to cities where livelihoods are less tied to fickle weather patterns. It's a pattern that is already happening against a background of rapid global urbanization, in which the desperate rate of growth far outpaces jobs and infrastructure.
The next step in the migration pattern is across national borders. Military experts predict a downward spiral of violence and conflict as people desperate for food, water and jobs cross into neighboring countries where resources may be only slightly less scarce. Wealthy nations like the United States and the European Union, meanwhile, could also be asked to take in millions of the world's displaced people even as they negotiate international disputes.

BEES-
Scientists say there is no proof that a mysterious disease blamed for the deaths of billions of bees actually exists, the BBC has been told. For five years increasing numbers of unexplained bee deaths have been reported worldwide, with US commercial beekeepers suffering the most. The term Colony Collapse Disorder was coined to describe the illness. But many experts now say that the term is misleading and there is no single, new ailment killing the bees. In part of California the honeybee is of crucial importance to the local economy as 80% of the world's almonds come from there - America's most valuable horticultural export. But without the bee pollinating the trees, there would be no almonds. In a few frenzied weeks in February and March, billions of honey bees are transported to the state from as far away as Florida. However, since 2004 their numbers have been mysteriously declining, and it was only at the end of 2006 that the severity of the losses began to be fully realised. Hives were found empty - there were no dead bees on the ground, there weren't any bodies there. Even stranger than the absence of the insects was the fact that other bees would not go near these deserted colonies. Since then around 2m colonies of bees have disappeared across the US. And the losses have continued this year, albeit at a lower rate. The unexplained nature of the affliction, with empty hives and no clearly defined infection, has stumped scientists. "It's misleading in the fact that the general public and beekeepers and now even researchers are under the impression that we've got some mysterious disorder here in our bees. And so researchers around the world are running round trying to find the cause of the disorder - and there's absolutely no proof that there's a disorder there." "We've seen these kinds of symptoms before, during the seventies, during the nineties, now. It's probably not a unique event in beekeeping to have large numbers of colonies die." Many experts speak about a "perfect storm" of impacts that are the real reason for the decline. Since the 1980s a rising tide of ailments has assaulted the honeybee, including the varroa mite and many deadly viruses. There are also concerns that bees are being deprived of nutrition as urbanisation removes their natural pastures. One of the biggest worries is the possible impact of agricultural pesticides.

------------------------------------------

Wednesday, March 4, 2009 -

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious,
Than to be able to decide.
Napoleon Bonaparte

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/3/09 -
5.1 MOLUCCA SEA
5.0 EASTERN SICHUAN, CHINA
5.0 TAJIKISTAN
5.1 BONIN ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.2 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.3 GUAM REGION
5.2 NEW IRELAND REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 NEW IRELAND REGION, P.N.G.

BRITAIN - A earth tremor yesterday rocked Kent - where a quake damaged 500 homes less than two years ago. Houses shook in Dover and parts of Folkestone in the latest shaker. The tremor lasted a few seconds and there were no reports of damage. Folkestone was hit in April 2007 by a quake which wrecked cars and chimneys. That one measured 4.3 on the Richter scale.

VOLCANOES -
ALASKA - Okmok Volcano now joins Redoubt among the restless volcanoes. Okmok Volcano rumbled a bit Monday night, causing the Alaska Volcano Observatory to raise its alert level. Okmok exhibited signs of elevated unrest Monday evening with a series of short bursts of volcanic tremors. Scientists say the seismic activity decreased significantly over the past 12 hours, but they will continue to closely monitor the volcano.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone GABRIELLE was 997 nmi W of Broome, Australia.

AUSTRALIA - A weak low pressure system is sitting over the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula and could develop into a rain depression or a cyclone later in the week.

HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
"Gravity wave" powered late-season snowstorm - Near the height of the most disruptive storm of the winter, one that became a daylong nuisance throughout the region, high drama was playing out in the skies above South Jersey. Just before midnight Sunday, a band of rapidly rising air - part of what is known as a "gravity wave" - developed in the upper atmosphere from eastern Virginia into eastern New Jersey. And this was a particularly potent one. For the next few hours, it generated heavy snow in South Jersey, with 10.5 inches in Hammonton by daybreak, and powerful wind gusts of 60 m.p.h. in Atlantic City and 59 m.p.h. in Cape May. By early morning, 20,000 customers would be without power. In all, the storm could cost the state up to $7 million. Meanwhile, the wave temporarily would shut off snow to areas to the west. The snow did come back as the storm entered a second phase at daybreak. The snow totals were impressive - generally, 6 to 8 inches in the Pennsylvania suburbs, more in South Jersey - and of some statistical note. The 5.6 inches measured Monday in Philadelphia BROKE THE MARCH 2 DAILY RECORD, 5 inches, set in 1914. And while this won't be remembered as a particularly ferocious winter, it is the FIRST IN MORE THAN 30 YEARS TO HAVE TWO SNOWFALLS OF 8-PLUS INCHES. The effects of the storm might have been worse in the western suburbs if not for the gravity wave over New Jersey that held down nighttime accumulations. The atmosphere in a storm behaves not unlike a stormy ocean, with rising and falling waves. Snow forms when warm air rises over cold air, and when air is rapidly rising, it snows heavily. Meanwhile, the area to the west of the wave crest has to sink, aided by the pull of gravity, and that has a drying effect. Gravity waves are a relatively recent discovery, and not easy to forecast - or find. "Those waves are superimposed on the larger-scale feature, and they are very hard to track."

MARYLAND - Tuesday's low of 10 degrees just before dawn at BWI-Marshall Airport was the COLDEST OFFICIAL READING ON A MARCH 3 SINCE RECORD-KEEPING BEGAN in 1871. It shattered the previous record of 12 degrees, last reached downtown on this date in 1925. On Monday, they SET A NEW RECORD FOR SNOWFALL on a March 2 in Baltimore - 4.7 inches. That beat the previous record of 3.7 inches set back in 1969. They are under a very strong, very cold dome of high pressure. Highs circulate clockwise, so as this high moves east, they'll lose the cold northwest winds and come into the return flow of warmer breezes from the south.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

AUSTRALIA - Many trees fell and windows from a Melbourne city skyscraper were blown out during 24 hours of furious weather. As winds battered the state, more than 440 volunteers were called into action to help out residents caught out by the FREAK conditions. Pedestrians were lucky to avoid broken panels of glass which fell from a building about 3.20pm yesterday as winds gusts topped 120km/h. Volunteers removed trees that had fallen on buildings and roadways and assisted with minor to moderate building damage, such as dislodged tiles, sheeting iron and even trampolines flying into houses. Conditions eased overnight. The Bureau of Meteorology has reissued a severe weather warning for west and south Gippsland districts for the rest of the day. Winds are expected to reach between 60 to 80km/h, with peak gusts of 110km/h predicted.

SPACE WEATHER-
Almost nothing is immune from space weather - not even the water in your bathroom. Experts analyzed what might happen to our modern, high-tech society in the event of a "super solar flare" followed by an extreme geomagnetic storm. The problem begins with the electric power grid. "Electric power is modern society's cornerstone technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend." Yet it is particularly vulnerable to bad space weather. Sprawling power lines act like antennas, picking up the currents and spreading the problem over a wide area. Interconnectedness makes the system susceptible to wide-ranging "cascade failures." In a super flare, more than 350 transformers are at risk of permanent damage and 130 million people would be left without power. The loss of electricity would ripple across the social infrastructure with "water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, fuel re-supply and so on." The total economic impact in the first year alone could reach $2 trillion.
The strongest geomagnetic storm on record is the Carrington Event of August-September 1859. Geomagnetic activity triggered by the explosion electrified telegraph lines, shocking technicians and setting their telegraph papers on fire; Northern Lights spread as far south as Cuba and Hawaii; auroras over the Rocky Mountains were so bright, the glow woke campers who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. At the moment, no one knows when the next super solar storm will erupt. It could be 100 years away or just 100 days. (map of areas of probable power system collapse)

Last week, on Feb. 23rd, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory watched a comet plunge into the sun and disintegrate. The doomed snowball was a member of the Kreutz sungrazer family. Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a giant comet some 2000 years ago. More than a thousand of these fragments have been catalogued since the observatory was launched in 1995. Most are small and faint, but this one was a beauty. (video)

Monday's asteroid likely "would produce a tsunami" had it landed in an ocean. Asteroid 2009 DD45, thought to be between 68 and 152 feet across, passed within 38,000 miles of Earth Monday - a close call in astronomical terms. It raced by Earth almost seven times closer than the moon at 6:44 p.m. New York time. "NO OBJECT OF THAT SIZE, OR LARGER, HAS BEEN OBSERVED TO COME CLOSER TO THE EARTH."

------------------------------------------

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 -

I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't.
Jules Renard

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/2/09 -
5.6 SULAWESI, INDONESIA
And a large cluster of small quakes in Western Turkey.

CHINA - Wenchuan earthquake mudslides emit greenhouse gas - Mudslides that followed the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, ranked as the 11th deadliest earthquake ever recorded, may cause a carbon-dioxide release in upcoming decades equivalent to 2% of current annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion, a new study shows. Mudslides wipe away plants and topsoil, depleting terrain of nutrients for plant regrowth and burying swaths of vegetation. Buried vegetable matter decomposes and releases carbon dioxide and other gases to the atmosphere. The expected carbon dioxide release from the mudslides following the Wenchuan earthquake is similar to that caused by Hurricane Katrina's plant damage. What's more, the vegetation destruction will lead to a loss of nitrogen from the quake-devastated region's ecosystem twice as large as the loss of that nutrient from California ecosystems because of the October 2007 wildfires there. And, as the biomass buried by the China quake rots, 14 percent of the nitrogen will be spewed into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, a pollutant typically released from agricultural operations, automobiles, and other sources. "From above, the area will look green in a few years, because grass grows back quickly, but the soil nutrients recover very slowly, and other kinds of plants won't grow."

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone GABRIELLE was 851 nmi W of Broome, Australia.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
HAWAII - A big wind, or "dust devil," that blew a portion of a roof off a school building on the Big Island is RARE in Hawaii, according to the National Weather Service. "A dust devil — especially one that produces wind damage — is very rare." The duration of strong winds for the past five days is UNUSUAL. The gusts are expected to continue through tomorrow and begin subsiding Thursday and Friday. Tradewinds from the northeast can be strong near the end of winter and the start of spring, although these type of winds can happen at any time of the year. A weather advisory for the Kau District has been in effect since last week, warning of the potential for 30 mph winds, gusting up to 50 mph. Typically short-lived and about a couple of hundred feet wide at the most, dust devils are formed when high winds strike terrain and turn in a circular motion. Within the last five days, the weather service had two reports of smaller dust devils occurring on Oahu and Kawaihae in West Hawaii.

HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
U.S. - Late-season snow and high winds punched through the eastern United States, killing at least five people as the freeze snapped power lines, closed schools and snarled air and road traffic.

SPACE WEATHER-
An asteroid which may be as big as a ten-storey building has passed close by the Earth. The object, known as 2009 DD45, thought to be 21-47m (68-152ft) across, raced by our planet at 1344 GMT on Monday. The gap was just 72,000 km (44,750 miles); a fifth of the distance between our planet and the Moon, and only twice the altitude of satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The closest recent flyby is 2004 FU162, a small asteroid about 6m (20ft) across which came within about 6,500km (4,000 miles) of our planet in March 2004. It is in the same size range as a rock which exploded over Siberia in 1908 with the force of 1,000 atomic bombs.

------------------------------------------

Monday, March 2, 2009 -

“Giving capital to a bank is like giving a gallon of beer to a drunk:
you know what will come of it, but you can’t know which wall he will choose."
Christopher Fildes

QUAKES -
Largest quakes yesterday -
3/1/09 -
5.0 EAST OF NORTH ISLAND, N.Z.
5.2 FIJI REGION
5.5 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
2/28/09 -
5.0 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.3 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.1 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
5.1 KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
6.3 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.5 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
2/27/09 -
5.0 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS

OREGON - Deep quake in SW was a RARE one. A light earthquake deep under the mountains of southwestern Oregon may have left many slumbering at 2 a.m. Thursday, 2/26, but a geologist said it was an eye-opener. The quake was about 24 miles deep and arose from a plate of basalt under the Pacific Ocean sliding beneath the North American continent. For years, scientists doubted that such deep quakes happened under Oregon. The quake Thursday was light, at magnitude 4.1. But it's a sign that one of magnitude 6 or 7 could arise from that slab, known as the Juan de Fuca plate. The plate is the source of many earthquakes of greater magnitude in the Puget Sound area, but it is under greater stress there. Scientists says its the ONLY ONE OF ITS KIND TO HIT WITHIN MILES OF THE REGION SINCE 1833.

TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone 17S was 998 nmi WNW of Broome, Australia.

HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CYPRUS - FREAK weather conditions caused a number of problems for residents. Several roads, mostly in the Paphos district, have been covered by water and there have been cuts in electricity supplies. A man was killed by lightning during a severe thunderstorm in the Cyprus capital. In Polis Chrysochous, flooding took several boats, which were sitting on land near the marina, out to sea. Several people were trapped by snow while driving in mountainous roads and had to be rescued by police.

HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
U.S. - A RARE March snow has blanketed much of Alabama and winter storm warnings are in effect along the U.S. East Coast. The icy blast threatened to drop up to a foot of snow in the Philadelphia area, 13 inches in New York and 15 inches across southern New England late Sunday. Maryland has already spent more than $40 million responding to bad weather in what's been a colder-than-usual winter. The late Southern snowfall revived memories of a large storm in 1993 that forecasters nicknamed the "Snowfall of the Century," which spanned a region from Alabama to north of Washington, D.C. In that storm, Atlanta received 4.2 inches of snow and 13 inches fell on Birmingham, Alabama.

EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-

AUSTRALIA - Emergency services in Victoria are adamant they are not "crying wolf" with warnings about extreme fire danger followed by an extreme storm event over the next couple of days. The temperature is set to rise to 31 degrees Tuesday, accompanied by winds of up to 150km/h. Authorities are pleading with residents throughout Victoria to prepare for the conditions. The conditions are being compared to Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday. "We're expecting a lot of trees to come down with the wind. A lot are unstable anyway, with the fires and the very dry conditions...We can not assume that any part of the state will be safe tomorrow." Four major fires are still burning, with the north-eastern end of the Kilmore-Murrindindi fire causing the most concern.

CALIFORNIA - The governor declared a state of emergency because of a severe drought and warns of possible water rationing. He urged the state's cities and towns to cut water consumption by 20%, or face the prospect of compulsory cuts. Three dry winters have left California's reservoirs at their LOWEST LEVELS SINCE 1992. The years of below-average rainfall could cost California an estimated $3bn (£2.1bn) and 95,000 jobs. "This drought is having a devastating impact... making today's action absolutely necessary. We have a water system that is for 18 million people - now we are 38 million. We've got to go and redo our water system - bring it up to date." Farmers have been particularly badly hit in a state which is the largest producer of food and agricultural products in the US. The drought has resulted in many fields being left fallow and thousands of farm worker have been laid off.

------------------------------------------

Featured Disasters from March & April 2009